Electronic Arts

By Luke Plunkett Acclaimed British science fiction author Richard K. Morgan has announced that he's teaming up with EA to help pen the stories for three of the publisher's upcoming titles. Interesting he specifically mentions that they're "separate" titles. So...one is probably a Dead Space game, the other...

By Brian Crecente Xbox 360 with $100 Card for $200 This Weekend? Console Arcade, DJ Hero, Rock Band Set for Colorado Child's Play Fundraiser The 10 Most Avidly-Played Wii Games In America (As Of Nov 1) Review Round-Up: Tekken, Forza, GTA And More Dedication To Dedicated Servers Earns EA At Least 60 Bucks

By Brian Crecente The folks at Electronic Arts are putting a lot of time into developing fun, sin-themed marketing for their upcoming release of Dante's Inferno.

By Mike Fahey Dragon Age: Origins was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on November 3. Retails for $59.99 USD ($49.99 PC). A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Reviewed the PlayStation 3 version. Played through t...

By Owen Good Three new fighters will be offered in the latest round of downloadable content to be offered for Fight Night Round 4, Electronic Arts announced on Monday. Bernard Hopkins, Sonny Liston and Evander Holyfield will join the game. The DLC pack will release "early December," nothing more spec...

By Owen Good NBA Live by EA Sports was developed by EA Mobile published by Electronic Arts for the iPhone and iPod Touch on Oct. 23. Retails for $9.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types and difficulties.)

By Mike Fahey Zombies eating neighbors, giant manatees eating pirates, and ghostly mini-games in this week's spooktacular Nintendo Download update. As always, check out the official descriptions below to learn more about the games you will or will not be spending your Nintendo points on this week.

By Owen Good By the end of this month, Cleveland supafan John "Big Dawg" Thompson should resolve his civil suit against Electronic Arts, alleging the unauthorized use of his likeness in the publisher's Madden NFL series. Browns Superfan John 'Big Dawg' Thompson's Case Against Game Maker Likely to b...

By Michael McWhertor Electronic Arts may be expanding its empire with a big buyout of social games developer Playfish, the UK-headquartered company that makes games for Facebook, MySpace, iPhone and Android. Cost to EA is rumored to be a quarter billion bucks.

By Mike Fahey Brutal Legend was developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on Rocktober 13th. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played though the campaign mode on normal difficult...

By Brian Crecente Before co-founding Robomodo in 2008, Tsui worked at Midway Games on the Mortal Kombat series. He went on to co-found Studio Gigante in 2000, which developed both Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus and WWE WrestleMania 21. He later went to work for Electronic Arts Chicago where he worked on Fight Nig...

By Owen Good NBA Live 10 was developed by EA Vancouver and published by Electronic Arts for Xbox 360 and PS3 on Oct. 6. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types in singleplayer mode and tested online multiplayer.

By Michael McWhertor Dante Alighieri will have to share writing credit with screenwriter Will Rokos, should the game win any awards for its screenplay. The Academy Award nominated Rokos has been pegged as responsible for the story line for Dante's Inferno.

By Owen Good Electronic Arts will be handling the next video game iteration of the Jason Bourne series, since the last one failed to deliver anything compelling, and a developer's online resume briefly revealed its title to be "The Bourne Ascendancy."

By Owen Good Papazian expressed confidence that Electronic Arts will prevail in its recent appeal for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel five Edge-related trademarks held by Langdell, on grounds they both have been abandoned and were fraudulently obtained. EA's suit arises from a disput...

By Brian Crecente Electronic Arts isn't is the only company selling a Nerf gun that doubles as a Wii remote holder. The gun doesn't come with it's own game, so I haven't had a chance yet to check out how well it works with Wii shooters. I did test out the Nerf aspects of the gun and managed to ping my son two out of thre...

By Brian Crecente Electronic Arts isn't is the only company selling a Nerf gun that doubles as a Wii remote holder. Performance Designed Products sent me this N-Strike Switch Shot Ex-3 last week (which they produced...

By Owen Good NHL 2K10 was developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii on on Sept. 15. Retails for $59.99 USD on Xbox 360 and PS3, $49.99 on Wii. Rated E10+ on all three platforms. Reviewed on Xbox 360. Played on all singleplayer and multiplayer modes except for "My Team."

By Brian Crecente To do more than use Dante's Inferno as a colorful setting for a generic game the Electronic Arts developers have to find interesting ways to tap into the themes of the poet's nine hells. At least that's what I told executive producer Johnathan Knight during a chat in Tokyo last week.

By Owen Good Newsweek's methodology draws on ratings in three different categories and, interestingly, Activision is the leader in its sector ("Consumer Products, Cars") by a scant margin over Electronic Arts, in the "Environmental Impact Score" category. Respectively, Activision and EA rate...

By Owen Good EA Sports' Madden franchise didn't hit the iPhone until the NFL's first week, trailing Gameloft's NFL 2010 by a month. Does it deliver what longtime fans should expect? Or is it just a big-name brand's toehold on a new platform? Madden NFL 10 was developed and published by Electronic Arts f...

By Leigh Alexander Hating EA is so last year," CEO John Riccitiello told Kotaku at E3 in 2008, talking to us about what Electronic Arts had learned from its old ways of doing business – ways that look an awful lot like how Activision appears to conduct itself these days. All across the internet, it's clear: Game...

By Owen Good Electronic Arts is asking the United States to cancel five trademarks held by Tim Langdell's Edge Games, saying the marks have been effectively abandoned. In comments to Kotaku, EA portrayed its...

By Owen Good A lot of small developers who are faced with this situation settle claims because they don't know how, or can't afford to fight for their rights," said Brown, the EA spokesman. "We hope that as a result of this action, other developers will be less intimidated by unwarranted legal threats."

By Brian Crecente Electronic Arts didn't go to the Tokyo Game Show this year, instead the mammoth developer and publisher held a nearly day-long event at the Mado Cafe in Tokyo's exclusive Roppongi Hills. The cafe, perched on the 52 floor of the Mori Tower in the back of a museum, was stuffed with copies of mos...

By Owen Good The news here isn't that Jim Brown, a man who certainly knows his rights, is supporting college players suing Electronic Arts over the use of their likenesses. It's how he lost his own claim against...

By Owen Good Brown wants to file a friend-of-the-court brief in Keller's case, which is before federal court in California's Northern District, up in Oakland. Brown's attorney is also the same one who represented retired player Herb Adderley - the lead plaintiff in a successful $26 million class ac...

By Brian Crecente Western developers Microsoft and Ubisoft both had large booths at the show this year, though Electronic Arts wasn't in the show this time around. Other big booths included those for Sony Computer Entertainment, portable game developer Level 5 and Japanese developers Square Enix, Kona...

By Monty Phan Need for Speed Shift was developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by Electronic Arts, released in North America on Sept. 15 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP, Windows PC, and iPhone. Retails for $59.99 USD on Xbox 360, and PS3, $49.99 on PC, $39.99 on PSP. Reviewed on Xbox 360. Completed sing...

By Luke Plunkett Activision Blizzard Bethesda Capcom Electronic Arts Konami MTV Games Namco Bandai Sega Square Enix THQ Ubisoft While some of the larger companies could be working on anything, others given an insight into some possible first-wave Natal titles. MTV Games? Rock Band. THQ? UFC.

By N. Evan Van Zelfden Electronic Arts has a booth, which sells The Beatles: Rock Band and the latest FIFA game, and Nintendo is represented by their local distributor. Sony exhibited in a previous year, but this year Sony and Nintendo are only participating in the business side of the show where developers and...

By Luke Plunkett The Tokyo Game Show doesn't start until tomorrow, but don't tell that to EA! They're kicking things off early this year, with a pre-TGS press conference. We're there. You should join us. EA TGS Presser

By Michael McWhertor Electronic Arts "indefinitely" delayed the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of its foray into pro tennis, citing the success of EA Sports Active as root cause of the high-def Grand Slam Tennis slip. Turns out there was another reason.

By Michael McWhertor 01. Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360) - 928,000 02. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) - 754,000 03. Madden NFL 10 (PS3) - 665,000 04. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360) - 303,000 06. Madden NFL 10 (PS2) - 160,000 08. Wii Fit (Wii) - 128,000 09. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 120,000 10. Fossil Fighters (DS) - 92,000

By Michael McWhertor This year's sales of Madden NFL football may not be living up to Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello's expectations. He calls sales of Madden NFL 10 "discouraging," indicating they're down from the previous year's. Electronic Arts Says ‘Madden,' Industry Sales Drop (Update3) [Bloomb...

By Michael McWhertor Our two-player session, played with Electronic Arts own Matt Turner, producer on the Army of Two sequel, dropped us into a Beijing zoo. Probably the worst zoo ever, considering the dead wildlife scattered about and the fact that everywhere we looked, everything seemed to be on fire.

By Brian Crecente What you missed: Gamer Movie Review: More Second Life Than Counter-Strike Commenters Hang At Microsoft HQ Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box Review: My Cup of Tea Madden iPhone Impressions: Thank You For Slow-Mo Electronic Arts Tests Journalists' Greed With Cash

By Brian Crecente Not one to back away from controversy, Electronic Arts today mailed out real checks payable to game reviewers for $200. Each check, mailed in wooden boxes decorated with twin skeletons and the words Dante's Inferno, was affixed to a velvet pillow inside a box. Inside the top of the box is a we...

By Leigh Alexander Risk-taking is a key element – Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello called Brütal Legend a "significant creative risk" — just before the publisher announced it'd be the one to rescue the title from its post Acti-Blizzard limbo. Fervent gamers now look forward to its breath of fresh air.

By Michael McWhertor Electronic Arts' recent attempt to "focus" Spore developer Maxis—which was a nicer way of saying some people got laid off—includes one of its more rant-ready folks, Chris Hecker, a Technology Fellow at the company. Remember him?

By Owen Good I expected we'll see a PlayStation 3.5 before we see a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox 560 before we see an Xbox 720," Rich Hilleman told Dean Takahashi and VentureBeat."The biggest shift is how fast packaged goods games are changing and going away."

By Stephen Totilo The layoffs were in the Emeryville studio, which is Maxis headquarters and the base of operations for Spore development. The Sims franchise, which was born at Maxis, is built out of EA's Redwood Shores offices, where The Sims 3 was created by the Sims Studio team.

By Owen Good Electronic Arts' top many in Germany, Gerhard Florin (pictured) says enough is enough. In an interview last week with Spiegel, Florin called Germany's USK rating system "censorship" and called on the country to use the PEGI ratings, used across the rest of Europe.

By Owen Good Did you buy a copy of Madden NFL from its 2006 version forward? You too can be a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Electronic Arts, over its exclusive-rights arrangement with the NFL. The case recently survived a dismissal motion by Electronic Arts. At last mention, this was set to go to trial...

By Brian Crecente The show is actually spread out over four massive public halls, each packed with booths from a number of game developers. Here's a look at Hall 6, home of Blizzard, Activision, Electronic Arts, Rockstar, 2K Games, Microsoft and others.

By Michael McWhertor As the Enforcers and the Criminals clashed throughout the Financial District of city San Pero, APB looked like a mix of a traditional MMO and Grand Theft Auto IV, with stats like player names and "threat rating"—essentially a player's level of skill—displayed above their heads.

By Brian Crecente With Microsoft, Sony and Electronic Arts liveblogs out of the way, its time now to sit down and listen to a bit from Konami. I wonder if they'll have any exciting news? Konami's Gamescom Press Conference

By Mike Fahey The Mass Effect trilogy is an epic, action-filled saga with consequences that will carry through from chapter to chapter," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager and Senior Vice President, Electronic Arts, and co-founder and CEO, BioWare. "Building out a diverse and loyal party is o...

By Michael McWhertor Dante's Inferno now has a hard date of February 12, 2010 in Europe, and a date of February 9, 2010 in the United States, the company announced today. Check our EA Gamescom liveblog for much more information about new Dante's Inferno gameplay mechanics.

By Michael McWhertor Tomorrow, expect big announcements from Electronic Arts and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Both companies will be holding press conferences prior to the show's official opening, so make sure you're here at 8 AM Kotaku Time to get a dose of Gamescom news.

By Owen Good Console Madden, from its Genesis and Super Nintendo days up through the PlayStation, went out on a Friday - before the entertainment industry, through a decision sort of made by acclamation, proclaimed Tuesday the day of the week for video game and DVD releases. EA followed the shift with...

By Owen Good Madden NFL 10 was developed by EA Tiburon and published by Electronic Arts for PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360 and Wii. Releases Aug. 14. Retails for $59.99. Tested on Xbox 360. Played entire season in franchise mode and tested all single- and multiplayer modes save Online Franchise, which is unavailab...

By Luke Plunkett Battlefield Heroes is a living, breathing experiment in online gaming for Electronic Arts. It's also one that I'm particularly fond of. But just how successful has it been for the company? Going by these numbers, I'd say "very". EA have sat down with the game's statistics and whittled them d...

By Owen Good A DICE associate producer, commenting over on the U.K. Electronic Arts forums, said the final version of Battlefield 2 v 1.50 is ready , except that "We have a little bit of office politics to sort out." BF2 Latest [EA UK Forums via Blue's News]

By Brian Crecente Electronic Arts too will come to Germany packing some major heat with nearly 20 titles to show off. That means time with APB, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Brütal Legend, C&C 4, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, Need for Speed SHIFT, Need for Speed NITRO, RAGE, The Beatles Rock Band, FIF...

By Luke Plunkett 1. The Sims 3 (EA The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts) 3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe (EA The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts) 8. Spore (Maxis, Electronic Arts) 15. SimCity Box (Maxis, Electronic Arts) 17. The Sims 2: Apartment Life (EA The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts)

By Michael McWhertor EA will also host the "EA Gaming Lounge presented by Xbox 360" at the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter Hotel during Comic-Con. That off-con event will feature Dragon Age: Origins, Battlefield 1943, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. Loungers will be able to test drive the second c...

By Owen Good We didn't report on Electronic Arts' staged protest of Dante's Inferno at E3 because it was an obviously fake marketing stunt (Although I was fooled). But people's reactions, different story. Faith-Based Bloggers Slam EA For Staging Fake Religious Protest at E3 [GamePolitics]

By Owen Good Wii Sports Resort, MotionPlus Out In July Rock Band Unplugged Dated Rumortaku Harmonix Designer Unwittingly Confirms LEGO Rock Band Three Companies Eye Midway For Buy Out Amazon Selling Xbox 360 Digital Games, Wii, PS3 Incoming?

By Brian Crecente That was the message Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello delivered to the more than 9,000 employees earlier this week at the company's annual town hall meeting. Companies like Electronic Arts and Activision, he said, can really afford to take on more risk than small studios.

By Jim Reilly Battlefield 1943: Pacific is a download only, multiplayer game for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The game, while new, is essentially a high-def remake of Battlefield 1942, and focuses more on pickup and play style gameplay. This is the first public demo available for fans to play.

By Owen Good Nintendo Responds To December NPD Sales, Seems Pleased Microsoft Responds To December NPD Sales, Seems Pleased Nintendo Breaks More Sales Records, Sells Over 5 Million Consoles In December What Was 2008's Best Selling Game In The U.S.? Nintendo's Wii And DS Sales Numbers Conquer Europe

By Mike Fahey While the console versions of EA DICE's ambitious first-person action adventure game Mirror's Edge might have slipped past the Frankenreview monster, the recently released PC version encounters no such luck. Now Mirror's Edge is finally available for the PC gaming crowd. Let's see how...

By Luke Plunkett As promised, EA have released SimCity upon Apple's App Store. Unsuspecting iPhone owners the world over are now downloading the game, unaware that...this may be an iPhone game that actually delivers. The graphics look like SimCity 3000, the gameplay's closer to SimCity 2000, and everythin...

By Mike Fahey The Sims 3 Q&A 9.What kind of player activity have you planned for The Sims 3? 12.Can we expect to see our favourite Sims families return, having grown, as they did between The Sims and The Sims 2? 15.What challenges did you face in the creation of The Sims 3?

By Mike Fahey This is not the trailer for a video game. No, this debut video for EA's Wii fitness program EA Sports Active has much more in common with early morning extended commercials for Bose Wave Radios than it does anything we've ever seen for a game product.

By Michael McWhertor While we're very bullish long term, we're very cautious in the short term," Riccitiello said, saying the company was investing more than ever in digital distribution and its EA Partners program. EA Reports Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2009 Results EA Announces Cost Reduction Plan

By Mike Fahey REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Black Box, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) studio, today revealed the soundtracks that will power the award-winning Skate It and Skate 2. These two skateboarding games bring the sport’s incredible tricks, epic moves and high energy to gamer...

By Mike Fahey Dead Space comic books. Dead Space animated films. Electronic Arts' marketing push behind their new survival horror IP has been nothing short of epic. To put this much faith in an untested product, EA must be pretty sure they've got something special on their hands, but then again parents of...

By Mike Fahey Another important stage in the cooperation of Electronic Arts and 1C Company is the distribution of EA games for PC in economy jewel packs in Russia. For the first time ever part of new games released by world's leading publisher will be distributed in economy packs (CD jewel case). Electro...

By Michael McWhertor About Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Comments on EA Announcement About Take-Two Interactive Software

By AJ Glasser The most amazing iPhone game at the EA Showcase was Spore Origins – even if it hadn’t been up against such visually uninteresting things as Scrabble and Sudoku. Keep your eyes on the iPhone app store for each of these titles, but remember, Spore could be a while…

By Mike Fahey REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Crytek GmbH announced today that Crysis Warhead®, the pulse-racing new installment of the Crysis® universe, will ship to retail stores in North America on September 16th and in Europe on September 12th. Begi...

By Owen Good Ghostbuster The Video Game Very Much Alive, Sitting on My Desk Forget Wii Fit, It's Mario Kart That's Buttering Nintendo's Bread Battlefield Heroes Not Coming This Summer Why Penny Arcade Took so Long to Go PSN and May Never Go Wii Ware

By Mike Fahey Battlefield: Bad Company addresses just that issue, adding a full single-player experience to the Battlefield series, complete with colorful characters and questionable moral choices on top of the usual multiplayer mayhem. It's uncharted waters for EA DICE – lets see if they sink or s...

By Mike Fahey EA DICE's Battlefield series has been providing PC gamers (and eventually console owners) with solid, entertaining online multiplayer battles for a good six years now. Now that they've proven they can deliver the multiplayer goods they've taken on the single player experience with Ba...

By Brian Crecente Big talk Moore, but lets put a little reality into this pie-in-the-sky promise. Why not say that if you don't have an overall Metacritic increase (yes I hate review scores) on all four of those games you've failed to deliver and it's time to ink up? We've even found this swell logo for your pos...

By Mike Fahey So EA wants to buy Take-Two Interactive, to the tune of $2 billion, and while to a certain degree I agree with EA's CEO John Riccitiello - this would be a major win for Take-Two stockholders, who've hung on for a rather bumpy ride over the past few years, I'm not sure how good it would be to the pe...

By Michael McWhertor Mac gaming may be the punchline of many PC gamers jokes, but it's kept alive by a handful of Mac OSX publisher holdouts. Only the biggest games make their way to the Apple OS, like World of Warcraft, The Sims, Doom III, Halo and Civilization. But, EA's pledge to bring more of its games to the plat...

One upshot of all this, though, that's not really being explored by the press, is that all this developer attention you see being put on the Wii right now is probably going to backfire. Because developers are going to learn that all these casual gamers are not buying the Wii to play anything o...

By Michael McWhertor Citing dropping review scores for EA's stable of yearly roster updates disguised as new games (Madden, NCAA, NBA Live), Wilson says that if scores continue to fall it could spell financial trouble for EA: The widespread industry belief is that one or two bad iterations can ruin the long-...

By lsmith Can you hear it? It's the sound of girlfriends and wives everywhere howling in righteous fury at boyfriends and husbands hunched over their computers testing out the latest Battlefield 2 patch. A few things in the patch notes worth mentioning: it looks like tons of guns have been retuned,...