# Electronic Arts - House: Publisher - Date: Founded 1982 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/electronic-arts/ > The publisher that sold games like rock albums, put The Bard's Tale in stores, then bought Origin, Westwood, Mythic and BioWare: EA owned a remarkable share of computer-RPG history. **Why it matters:** Few companies shaped the business of fantasy games more. Electronic Arts published Interplay's Bard's Tale, absorbed the studios behind Ultima, Eye of the Beholder, Dark Age of Camelot and Dragon Age, and closed several of them along the way. ## Quick answers **What is Electronic Arts?** The publisher that sold games like rock albums, put The Bard's Tale in stores, then bought Origin, Westwood, Mythic and BioWare: EA owned a remarkable share of computer-RPG history. **When was Electronic Arts founded?** Electronic Arts was founded in 1982 and is based in Redwood City, California (founded in San Mateo, California). **Who founded Electronic Arts?** Trip Hawkins, who incorporated the company as Amazin' Software on May 27, 1982. **What is Electronic Arts known for?** The Bard's Tale, Ultima Online, Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age: Origins and Dark Age of Camelot. **What happened to Electronic Arts?** Active. Taken private in a $55 billion buyout by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, completed August 4, 2026. ## History Trip Hawkins left Apple to incorporate his own company on May 27, 1982, in San Mateo, California, with about $200,000 of his own money. It was briefly called Amazin' Software; the staff hated the name, and by November it was Electronic Arts. Hawkins's idea was that games were a creative medium and their makers were artists. EA sold its early titles in square sleeves modeled on record albums and printed the designers' photographs on them, a gesture of respect that stood out in an industry of anonymous programmers. That publisher-of-artists model brought EA into fantasy almost at once. Independent developers without distribution of their own could reach stores through EA, and in 1985 [Brian Fargo](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/brian-fargo/)'s [Interplay Productions](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/interplay/) did exactly that with [Michael Cranford](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/michael-cranford/)'s [*The Bard's Tale*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-bards-tale/), a [dungeon crawler](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/dungeon-crawler/) in the line of [*Wizardry*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/). EA published it and its sequels of 1986 and 1988; by 2003 the series had sold more than a million copies. The partnership ended badly. When Interplay went its own way, its planned fourth *Bard's Tale* had to become an unrelated game, *Dragon Wars* (1989), because the rights stayed behind. From the 1990s EA grew less by publishing fantasy than by buying the studios that made it. In September 1992 it acquired [Richard Garriott](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/richard-garriott/)'s [Origin Systems](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/origin-systems/) for $35 million in stock, the same year Origin shipped [*Ultima VII*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-vii/) and published [*Ultima Underworld*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-underworld/). In August 1998 it paid Virgin $122.5 million for [Westwood Studios](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/westwood-studios/), makers of [*Eye of the Beholder*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/eye-of-the-beholder/) and *Lands of Lore*. In June 2006 it bought [Mythic Entertainment](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/mythic-entertainment/), and in October 2007 it acquired VG Holding, the parent of [BioWare](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bioware/) and Pandemic, for a reported $775 million. ## Notable work EA's greatest contribution to online worlds came through Origin: [*Ultima Online*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-online/), launched on September 24, 1997, proved that thousands of strangers would pay monthly to live in a shared fantasy world, and it gave the [MMORPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/mmorpg/) its first great laboratory of player economies, [player killing](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/player-killer/) and emergent drama, as in the [The Assassination of Lord British](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/lord-british-assassination/). The Mythic purchase added [*Dark Age of Camelot*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dark-age-of-camelot/) and produced *Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning* (2008), a licensed [Games Workshop](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/games-workshop/) world that closed in December 2013 when the license ended. BioWare gave EA its most celebrated role-playing work. [*Dragon Age: Origins*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-age-origins/) (2009), designed as a spiritual successor to [*Baldur's Gate*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/), launched a dark-fantasy franchise EA owned outright, and BioWare Austin's *Star Wars: The Old Republic* (2011) became EA's big MMO bet. In June 2009 EA merged BioWare and Mythic into a single RPG and MMO group under BioWare's leadership. ## Legacy EA's record in fantasy is one of preservation and loss. It kept worlds running long after their studios were gone: Origin was disbanded in February 2004, Westwood closed in March 2003, and Mythic was shut in May 2014, but *Ultima Online* and *Dark Age of Camelot* passed to Broadsword, a studio founded by Mythic co-founder Rob Denton, and *The Old Republic* followed in 2023. EA also reissued its past, bundling the *Ultima* games and in 2011 releasing [*Ultima IV*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-iv/) as freeware. The company's size has cut both ways. *Dragon Age: The Veilguard* (2024) reached, by EA's account, 1.5 million players in its first quarter, about half of what the company expected, and in January 2025 EA shrank BioWare to fewer than 100 people focused on *Mass Effect*. Later that year, on September 29, 2025, EA agreed to be taken private by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners in a $55 billion deal. Shareholders approved it in December 2025, the European Commission cleared it in July 2026, and it closed on August 4, 2026, at $210 a share, ending EA's life as a Nasdaq company. The publisher that once called its developers artists still holds the *Ultima* rights, BioWare's franchises and the legacy of a string of closed studios: one of the deepest catalogs in the history of the [Western Computer RPGs (CRPG)](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/computer-rpg/). ## Facts - Trip Hawkins incorporated the company on May 27, 1982, as Amazin' Software; employees disliked the name, and it became Electronic Arts that November. - EA packaged early games in square sleeves modeled on album covers and gave its developers photo credits as 'software artists.' - EA published Interplay's [The Bard's Tale](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-bards-tale/) in 1985 for the Apple II and Commodore 64, along with its first two sequels (1986, 1988). - EA bought [Origin Systems](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/origin-systems/) in September 1992 for $35 million in stock, and disbanded the studio in February 2004. - It bought [Westwood](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/westwood-studios/) from Virgin in August 1998 for $122.5 million, [Mythic](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/mythic-entertainment/) in June 2006, and [BioWare](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bioware/)'s parent company in October 2007. - Its $55 billion take-private, announced September 29, 2025, and completed August 4, 2026, was described as the largest leveraged buyout to date. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts) - [Electronic Arts (official site)](https://www.ea.com) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.