Electronic Arts almost became Electronic Artists until one employee objected
At an off-site meeting in 1982, Trip Hawkins' tiny games start-up was stuck choosing a name. Several staff liked Electronic Artists, a nod to the film studio United Artists. Then Steve Hayes spoke up: "We're not the artists, they are," meaning the outside developers. The mood swung at once, and Electronic Arts was adopted unanimously.
Hawkins had joined Apple in 1978, when it had around fifty staff, and watched it grow past a thousand. In 1982, encouraged by investor Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital, he left, put in roughly US$200,000 of his own money and incorporated the company on 27 May, working out of Sequoia's spare office. Its first name, Amazin' Software, was universally disliked by early employees. The alternative SoftArt was dropped because it sounded too close to Software Arts, the creators of VisiCalc.
The name reflected a real philosophy. Hawkins treated game makers as creative talent, crediting them with photographs in games and in full-page magazine adverts; the first, under the slogan We see farther, was the first games ad to feature designers. Titles such as M.U.L.E. came in square boxes modelled on record album sleeves, which saved money and felt artistic. EA also sold directly to retailers, which won it better margins than rivals.
Its early software went beyond games. On the Amiga, the drawing program Deluxe Paint became perhaps the platform's most famous application, and EA's Jerry Morrison devised the Interchange File Format for mixing images, sound and text, which became an Amiga standard. Every EA game was made by outsiders until Skate or Die! in 1987. Hawkins' passion for realistic sports simulation led to a deal with coach John Madden and a yearly football series.
Hawkins stepped down as chief executive in 1991 to found 3DO, whose powerful console cost US$700 against rivals' $100 and faded once Sony's PlayStation arrived. EA itself went public in 1990 and grew into the publisher of The Sims, Battlefield and a long run of sports franchises, alongside criticism over microtransactions and closing smaller studios.
Source: Electronic Arts
