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ABOUT ELECTRONIC ARTS
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lectronic Arts is easily one of the most famous names in gaming history. With an astonishing list of award-winning
and diverse games under their belt since its establishment in 1982 by Trip Hawkins. The company was a pioneer in its
beginnings due to its reputation for promoting the programmers and designers it worked with.

Originally starting out as just a publisher, EA went on to start developing games in the late ‘80s for
home computers and then on to games for consoles in the early ‘90s. They have since then acquired
many successful developers and become one of the largest third-party publishers in the world.

Since a lot of reshuffling in the company, EA is now split into four main developing houses: EA Games, EA
Sports, EA Bioware and EA Maxis and between these they are responsible for some monstrously popular titles.
Games like Populus, Dungeon Keeper, the Need for Speed franchise, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, SSX, The
Sims, Mass Effect, Battlefield and Mirror’s Edge are but a tiny fraction of the incredible work that comes out of the company.

Their headquarters are currently based in Redwood Shores, California but they also have
offices based in Canada, France and Sweden as well as another in Florida.

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ABOUT MAXIS

A Maxis (formerly known as Maxis Software, or simply Maxis), was founded in 1987 as an independent videogame developer by Will Wright
and Jeff Braun. It came into being to help get SimCity onto home PCs, as at the time it was only available on the Commodore 64 due to

lack of Publisher interest in the game. Ten years later it was bought by Electronic Arts and is now one of their four major development labels.

Many of the original staff of Maxis have stayed with the company since EA’s acquisition, including Will Wright
and it is currently stationed in Redwood Shores after relocating from Walnut Creek, California.

In 2006 The Sims Studio was created and took over the production of The Sims 2 and
consequently The Sims 3 so that Maxis could concentrate on Spore. There has been much
reshuffling within EA however and as of 2011 The Sims Studio now falls under the EA Maxis umbrella.

The developer is well-known for its many Simulation-based games, including the massive The
Sims franchise, SimCity and all its reiterations as well as the aforementioned Spore. There are many others, but these
three have really been responsible for engraving EA Maxis’ name in the annals of game developer history.
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