Electronic Arts 2005 Annual Report Download - page 60

(professional soccer), NBA Live 2005, NCAA»March Madness
TM
2005 (collegiate basketball), Tiger
Woods PGA TOUR»2005 (professional golf), NHL»2005 (professional hockey) and NASCAR 2005:
Chase for the Cup (stock car racing),
‚ EA GAMES
TM
Ì We publish a variety of games under our EA GAMES brand. Some of our recent
products published under the EA GAMES brand include Burnout» 3: Takedown
TM
, The Lord of the
Rings
TM
, The Third Age
TM
, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
TM
, The Sims
TM
2, Need for Speed
TM
Underground 2
and Medal of Honor
TM
PaciÑc Assault, and
‚ EA SPORTS BIG
TM
Ì We publish arcade-style extreme sports and modiÑed traditional sports games
under our EA SPORTS BIG brand. Some of our recent products published under the EA SPORTS
BIG brand include NFL STREET 2: Unleashed (football), Def Jam»Fight for NY
TM
(wrestling),
NBA STREET Vol. 3 (basketball) and FIFA STREET (soccer).
Co-publishing and Distribution Products
Through our EA Partners global business unit, we team with other game development companies that develop
their own interactive software games with our assistance, which we then publish, market and distribute. An
example of one of our recent co-publishing products is TimeSplitters Future Perfect
TM
, which was developed by
Free Radical Design, a game development company located near London. We also distribute interactive
software games that are developed by other companies. An example of one of our recent distribution products
is Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, published by LucasArts, which we distributed in
Japan.
Another strength of our business is that we develop product families (we call them ""franchises'') around many
of our products. For example, every year we release new versions of most of our EA SPORTS titles. Likewise,
we have been successful in developing, marketing, publishing and distributing sequels to several of our EA
GAMES and EA SPORTS BIG products. We also release products called ""expansion packs'' for PC titles
that provide additional content (characters, storylines, settings, missions) for games that we have previously
published. For example, we have published an expansion pack The Sims 2: University, which expands the
characters, settings and gameplay of the original The Sims 2 game. We consider titles that iterate, sequel or
spawn expansion packs to be franchise titles.
Method of Delivery
The console, PC and some mobile games that we publish are made available to consumers on a disk (usually
CD, DVD or Universal Media Disc (""UMD'') format) or a cartridge that is packaged and typically sold in
retail stores and through online stores (including our own online store). We refer to these as ""packaged goods''
products. In North America and Europe, our largest markets, these packaged goods products are sold
primarily to retailers that may be mass market retailers (such as Wal-Mart), electronics specialty stores (such
as Best Buy) or game software specialty stores (such as GameStop). We also maintain a smaller business
where we license to manufacturers of products in related industries (for example, makers of personal
computers or computer accessories) rights to include certain of our products with the manufacturer's product
or oÅer our products to consumers who have purchased the manufacturer's product. We call these combined
products ""OEM bundles''.
There are three ways in which we publish games that are playable online by consumers: (1) we publish games
that are playable only online. One type of these online-only games is called ""persistent state worlds'' or
""massively multiplayer online games''. Players experience these games as interactive virtual worlds where
thousands of other players can interact with one another. An example of our persistent state world products is
Ultima Online. These persistent state world games are often sold to consumers in the form of a CD or DVD
that contains much of the software necessary to play the game online. After loading the game disk on their
PCs, players are able to log-on to servers that we make available in order to interact with other players;
(2) other types of online-only games that we publish are available on the World Wide Web and include card
games, puzzle games and word games (marketed under our ""pogo
TM
'' brand), all of which are made available
to consumers on our web site, www.pogo.com, and on certain online services provided by America Online,
Inc.; and (3) we include online capability features in certain of our PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox products,
which enable consumers to participate in online communities and play against one another via the Internet.
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