Electronic Arts 2008 Annual Report Download - page 82

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develops massively-multiplayer online role-playing games which are persistent state virtual worlds where
thousands of other players can interact with one another. For example, we expect to launch Warhammer Online
in the coming fiscal year. The EA Games portfolio includes several established franchises such as Need for
Speed, Battlefield, Mercenaries and Burnout. In addition, EA Games has recently launched new franchises
including SKATE and Army of Two, and has additional titles in development. EA Games titles are developed
primarily at the following EA studios: Bioware (located in Edmonton, Canada and Austin, Texas), Black Box
(located in Vancouver, Canada), Criterion (located in Guildford, England), DICE (located in Stockholm,
Sweden), EA Los Angeles, EA Montreal, EA Redwood Shores, Maxis (located in Emeryville, California), EA
Mythic (located in Fairfax, Virginia), Pandemic Studios (located in Los Angeles, California and Brisbane,
Australia) and Phenomic (located in Ingelheim, Germany).
EA Games also includes the EA Partners group, which teams with external game developers and third party
companies, to provide these partners with a variety of services including development, publishing, and
distribution. For example, in fiscal 2008, through a co-publishing agreement with Crytek, we released Crysis»
on the PC, and we signed a distribution agreement with Harmonix, a subsidiary of Viacom, to distribute Rock
Band.
EA SPORTS Label
The EA SPORTS label brings together a wide collection of sports-based video games marketed under the EA
SPORTS brand. EA SPORTS games range from simulated sports titles with realistic graphics based on real-
world sports leagues, players, events and venues to more casual games with arcade-style gameplay and
graphics. We seek to release new iterations of many of our EA SPORTS titles on a regular basis (often
annually), in connection with the commencement of a sports league’s season or a major sporting event when
appropriate. Our EA SPORTS franchises include FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL Football, Fight Night, NBA Live,
NCAA Football, NCAA March Madness, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL Hockey, Nascar and Rugby. EA
SPORTS games are developed primarily at our EA Canada (located in Vancouver, British Columbia) and EA
Tiburon studios (located in Orlando, Florida), and, to a lesser extent, use several development studios
highlighted in the EA Games label description above.
In addition to packaged goods games, the EA SPORTS label offers online-only games and entertainment. In
Korea, EA SPORTS currently offers EA SPORTS FIFA Online, a free-to-play online game in which players
may purchase additional in-game content from us (we refer to these consumer purchases of small elements of
additional content as “micro-transactions”). We expect to introduce other online games under the EA SPORTS
brand in the future. In fiscal 2009, EA SPORTS will also seek to increase its global presence through the
introduction of new web-based communities centered on our portfolio of sports games.
The Sims Label
The Sims label develops and markets life-simulation games and online communities with an emphasis on
creativity, community and humor.
The Sims has sold over 100 million units world-wide since it was originally launched in 2000. A significant
factor in its success has been the regular introduction of expansion packs with new content and gameplay
features that can be purchased and used in connection with our core products, The Sims and The Sims 2.In
fiscal 2008, The Sims label launched two expansion packs for The Sims 2.
In addition to our expansion packs, The Sims label also launched several console products in fiscal 2008, most
notably MySims
TM
— a newly created franchise for the Wii and Nintendo DS — and The Sims 2 Castaway on
the Wii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2 and PSP.
The Sims 2 online community has 4 million unique visitors monthly, with localized communities in 15
countries. The centerpiece of this community is the user exchange, where users can download both EA and
user-created content for use in their The Sims 2 core game. To date, there have been over 60 million
downloads of content from The Sims 2 exchange.
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