EA Sports is a brand name used by Electronic Arts since 1993 to distribute games based on sports. Formerly a gimmick inside Electronic Arts sports games, that tried to mimic real-life sports networks, calling themselves "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements of real comentators such as Ron Barr and John Madden, soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing games such as FIFA, NHL or Madden NFL. EA Sports early motto, If it's in the game, it's in the game reflect the early aim of the early games, to portrait reality as best as the technology would allow. Unlike other companies, EA Sports have no special ties to a single platform, all games are released for the best-selling active platforms, sometimes long after most other companies abandon them (FIFA 98 and NHL 98 were released for the Mega Drive and the Sega Genesis, respectively and FIFA 2005 still had a PlayStation release)
16 bit era
After establishing with some highly regarded titles in the first years of the decade, most notably Madden NFL and NHL Hockey, in 1993 the decision to advance to a sports-only label was made. With a new logo (whose design later would be also adopted by EA) and a uniform box design, all white with a live-action photo (example), the exception being the Madden games, that featured Madden himself. All boxes would remain this way until 1997, when individual players starred alone, and altough the 99 titles featured one unusual dark blue case, the all-white boxes returned next year.
The first titles were released for both Sega's 16-bit console, the Mega Drive\Sega Genesis, and Nintendo's SNES (among other platforms, but only regularly for these two). In fact, some attribute the success of Sega's console partly on the strenght of the sports catalog provided by EA Sports. On the other hand, the lack of them on the next Sega console, the Saturn is believed to be one of the reasons it failed on the American market.
32 bit era to present
As the 16-bit era came to a close, and powerful 3D-capable consoles appeared, EA had to reinvent their franchises, and some of the earliest titles failed to live up to their 2D predecessors' reputation. However, in 1998 two games received very positive feedback - FIFA 98: Road to World Cup and NHL 98. Later that year, World Cup 98 broke the bad reputation of "official videogames" by receiving high marks almost unanimously. As fluidity in gameplay catched up with graphics, EA soon had to face another problem: the lack of improvement over previous titles, or as fans dubbed it, "sequelitis". The first years of the 21st Century were problematic, with many fans left wondering why bother with the next release when few new features are added, no improvement on gameplay (which was more action-oriented than some of their newest competitors) and lack of response over long-asked requests.
A new sublabel also appeared, dubbed EA Sports BIG, which specialized on extreme sports or unconventional takes on sports, such as Def Jam Vendetta, NFL Street, SSX, FIFA Street or Freekstyle.
Series and games
Most games are distinguished by year, as most games are released on a yearly basis. However, as EA Sports is the leading purchaser of official licenses, it's not uncommon that that in a short span several games of the same sport but with different licenses are released: FIFA 98 was shortly followed by World Cup 98 (as EA has the license for the FIFA World Cup and the European Football Championship, it happens regularly in two-year intervals) and college football or basketball games based on both NBA Live and Madden NFL. The earlier titles released until 1996 are referred by fans as the classic series.
- Triple Play series, 1996, discontinued in 2002, giving place to the MVP Baseball series
- FIFA series, 1993
- EA Sports also released several other games, most notably the games with World Cup and European Championship licenses.
- Three Eliteserien titles were also released in Sweden
- PGA Tour series, 1990, renamed to Tiger Woods PGA Tour in 1999
- NASCAR Thunder series (later renamed to NASCAR: Chase for the Cup)
- NCAA March Madness series
- Knockout Kings series, which was composed of five titles (between 1998 and 2002) and then discontinued when Fight Night 2004 was released. In the past, Toughman Contest was also released.
- Total Club Manager
- Predeceded by FIFA Soccer Manager (1996) and the Premier League Manager series.
- Rugby series
- Altough Rugby World Cup 95 and Australian Rugby League were released still during the 16-bit era, the series would only turn regular in 2003. The official game of the 1999 Rugby Union World Cup was delayed, and was only released many months after as Rugby 2001.
There are other series, including F1 Championship (discontinued after Sony acquired the official license for the Formula 1 championship), Superbike and others with a limited distribution such as Cricket and AFL.
Exclusivity deals
In 2003 EA purchased the license to NASCAR ending competition from Papyrus and Infogrames. Many loyal fans of the NASCAR Racing Series games by Papyrus resent EA for that and currently boycott all EA games. More recently, after purchasing the license of the UEFA Champions League (previously owned by Eidos) in November 2004, a month later EA announced an exclusive deal (rumoured to be worth around US $1B) with the NFL and the NFL Players Association (Players Inc.) making them the sole provider of licensed NFL video games until 2010, which effectively removes the competition from the market, who will not be allowed to feature real players or teams in their games. It is considered that one of the main reasons behind the deal is related with Take Two's agressive pricing with their ESPN-licensed series, which were retailed at budget price, about half the price of a regular EA Sports game. It is believed that the same move was attempted in late 2004 on the NBA, but it was refused and afterwards EA executives denied making any offer to the basketball association. However, their "exclusive spree" continued on January 2005 when a deal with the Arena Football League (AFL) was announced, but with less impact on the market, as the license was previously vacant. A new shocking deal was done just days after the AFL deal, when former SEGA/Take Two partners ESPN signed a 15-year deal with EA Sports.