EA Sports

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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 commentators such as Ron Barr and John Madden, it soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing games such as FIFA, NHL, Madden NFL, and NCAA Football. Most games under this brand are developed by EA Montreal, the studio of Electronic Arts in Montreal, Canada.

EA Sports' early motto, If it's in the game, it's in the game, (later abbreviated to just It's in the game.) reflects the aim of the early games to portray reality as best as the technology would allow. Unlike some other companies, EA Sports has no special ties to a single platform, which means that all games are released for the best-selling active platforms, sometimes long after most other companies abandon them (FIFA 98, Madden NFL 98, NBA Live 98, and NHL 98 were released for the Sega Genesis and the Super NES throughout 1997; and Madden NFL 2005 and FIFA 2005 had PlayStation releases in 2004).

Contents

[edit] 16 bit era

Top: the original EASN logo; Bottom, the first EA Sports logo as a sub-label
Top: the original EASN logo; Bottom, the first EA Sports logo as a sub-label

After establishing with some highly regarded titles from 1987-1992, most notably Earl Weaver Baseball 1987, John Madden Football 1990 and NHL Hockey 1991, EA decided in 1992 to launch a sports-only label and EASN was born. ESPN took note of the similarities, and forced EA to come up with a new label to put their sports label under for the 1994 season. The first run of the 1994 season still donned the EASN brand, with a 'first run' logo on the lower right hand corner of the box (this was also done in 1993), while the rest of the production run was under the name EA Sports, 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, which featured Madden himself. All boxes would remain this way until 1997, when individual players starred alone, and although the 99 titles featured one unusual dark blue case, the all-white boxes returned the next year.

The first titles were released for both Sega's 16-bit console, the 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 strength of the sports catalog provided by EA Sports. On the other hand, the lack of them on the Saturn is believed to be one of the reasons it failed in the American market.

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 caught up to 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 they should bother with the next release, when few new features were added, gameplay was not improved and their requests were ignored.

A new sublabel also appeared, dubbed EA Sports BIG, which specialized in extreme sports or unconventional takes on sports, such as Def Jam Vendetta, NFL Street, NBA Street, SSX, Sled Storm, FIFA Street and Freekstyle.

[edit] Series and games

Most EA Sports 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 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.

Three Elitserien titles were also released in Sweden
Three SM-liiga titles were released in Finland
Preceded by FIFA Soccer Manager (1996) and the Premier League Manager series.
Started at Rugby World Cup 1995 on Sega Mega Drive which went on to Rugby 2001 (A late version of Rugby World Cup 1999) PC only, Rugby, Rugby 2004, Rugby 2005, and Rugby 2006 all on Playstation 2 and XBOX as well as PC
Australian Rugby League was released on Sega Mega Drive as you play through the 1995 ARL season and the other ARL 96 was on PC depicting the 1996 ARL season.
First version released in February 2006
Cricket started out with Ian Botham International Cricket 1996 (called Cricket 96 in Australia); Its sequel was Cricket 97 which was complemented with Cricket 97: Ashes Tour Edition. Following releases include Cricket Ashes Tour (1998), Cricket World Cup 99 (1999) and Cricket 2000. From then onwards, the series was a biennial one, with the releases of Cricket 2002 and 2004. It has returned to being an annual release with the releases of Cricket 2005 and Cricket 07.
  • There are other series, including F1 Championship (discontinued after Sony acquired the exclusive license for the Formula 1 championship), Superbike and others with a limited distribution such as AFL

[edit] Exclusivity deals

In 2003 EA purchased the license to NASCAR for 6 years, ending competition from Papyrus and Infogrames.

On December 13, 2004, EA Sports signed an exclusive deal with the NFL and it's Player's Union for 5 years.

Less then a month after the NFL Exclusive deal, EA Sports signed a 4 year exclusive deal with the Arena Football League.

On April 11, 2005, the NCAA and EA Sports signed a deal to grant EA Sports the sole rights to produce college football games.

[edit] 06 Games

[edit] 07 Games

[edit] 08 Games

[edit] Trivia

  • The brand title EA Sports inspired the name of Electronic Arts's non-sports game brand EA Games with the same style of the EA Sports logo in 2001.
  • EA Sports' official slogan says "EA Sports - It's in the Game!"
  • All EA Sports BIG games on the Gamecube in 2005 featured Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach, from the Super Mario franchise, as playable characters. Ex: SSX On Tour, NBA Street V3.

[edit] External links

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