The Video Game Publishing Giant Has Become Public Enemy Number 1 After Numerous Studios Bought By The Company Went Bust Due To The Company's Poor Business Practices

The gaming giant that is Electronic Arts (EA) has become the video game community's Boogie Man and gaming studios's Grim Reaper due to forced micro-transactions, pay-to-win structure, bad PR and HR, and for killing off every gaming studio the publisher buys.

In this article, we will explore all 15 game developers that were acquired by EA and then liquidated by the publisher, and their respective histories from oldest to youngest.

Should two or more studios be established on the same year, the listing will order them based on their dissolution dates instead of their dates of founding.

Origin Systems (1983-2004)

Origin Systems, often shortened to just Origin, was a Texan independent gaming studio founded by Richard and Robert Garriott, with $70,000 (£68,245) of their own money with zero backers whatsoever.

Origin's gaming rapsheet included the Ultima Series, System Shock (Co-Developed with Looking Glass Technologies), Wing Commander, and Crusader series.

The company was bought by EA in 1992, and under their new management began making online only titles including Ultima Online which in 2008 earned a Guinness World Record for the first MMORPG to gain and retain 100,000 players.

Due to poor sales of Privateer Online and Harry Potter Online in the early 2000s, Origin Systems was shut down in February of 2004.

Today, the name Origin is used by EA for their digital distribution software (DDS) service, which was taken to court numerous times due to removing Crysis 2 from Steam to put it on their storefront, multiple hackings, spying on gamers, soft bans, full account bans, and for having oppressive anti-cheat software.

Westwood Associates (1985-2003) 

The company that would become Westwood Studios in 1992 was previously called Westwood Associates by Las Vegas based business partners Louis Castle and Brett W. Sperry in 1985, not starting as game developers at first, rather their business practices included contract work for Epyx and SSI in porting video games to the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST.

It wasn't until 1988 that they released their first game as an independent gaming studio called Mars Saga, which was published by EA in 1988 back when Electronic Arts was still a small publishing house.

The company became Westwood Studios as mentioned in 1992, after being bought by Virgin Games, three years later they'd release their first edition of Command & Conquer (C&C) inspired by their own work on Dune II.

Westwood Studios was bought by EA, their old publishing partner, in 1998 as part of EA's purchase of Virgin Games and Burst Studios (an inhouse team of Virgin Games) and in 2003 all three were merged into EA Los Angeles, ending Westwood Studios in the process. 

Bullfrog Productions (1987-2001)

One of the few Non-American companies on this list, Bullfrog was founded by UK developers Les Edgar and the infamous Peter Molyneux, creating many popular God Games including Populous, Syndicate, Theme Park, and Dungeon Keeper where players controlled the lives of NPCs.

Before being acquired by EA in 1995, the studio (Similar to Westwood Associates/Studios) worked as a strategic partner for EA in 1988, helping EA expand their presence and brand in the UK and the then EEC (Present day EU).

In 2003, Bullfrog was liquidated and formed into EA UK, who began publishing inferior mobile ports of Bullfrog games including the heavily panned 2014 reboot of Dungeon Keeper developed by Mythic Entertainment.

Maxis Software (1987-2015*)
The only game studio on this list to be resurrected by EA, the original Maxis Software was founded in California by Will Wright and Jeff Braun for the soul purpose of publishing their game SimCity to the Commodore 64.

The world building game became a success overnight, but as more people bought SimCity titles made by Maxis, they quickly realized that it was cannibalizing their other games sales.

After the company failed to counter this Ouroboros Effect, they accepted a buyout from EA in 1997 and continued to publish SimCity titles with the help from a yet to be dissolved Bullfrog Productions.

Following the absolute failure of their 2008 IP, Spore, and the 2013 remaster of the original SimCity layoffs began and by March of 2015 the plug was pulled on Maxis's life support.

That would be where the story of Maxis Software ended, but in 2019 the company was resurrected under the name Maxis Texas to continue online support for SimCity.

Later in 2021, a branch of EA UK was created called Maxis Europe to cope with the Covid-19 Pandemic leaving developers unable to work in the EA UK offices.

NuFX (1990-2007)

Founded in Chicago, Illinois, by Lou Haehn and Patrick Quinn, they're known for their NBA Street series which became their main money making franchise.

EA bought NuFX in 2004, and they began working under the EA Sports label before being liquidated in 2007 to form EA Chicago.

Headgate Studios (1992-2017)

Headgate was founded by Vance Cook of Bountiful, Utah, after he quit his job at Access Software, his studio began making PGA games for the Sega Genesis and later the original Playstation.

The studio was first purchased by Sierra Entertainment in 1996, though was given back to Cook after Y2K, after which they started to sell their famous PGA World Tour games marketed by African American golfer Tiger Woods with EA Sports being their publisher.

In 2006 after the success of the Nintendo Wii, Cook sold the company to EA for an undisclosed sum of money, after which they began focusing on developing games for the Wii under the name EA Utah.

After the failure of the Wii's successor the Wii-U, EA Utah was then tasked with developing DLCs for SimCity and releasing licensed games from Hasbro including Nerf N-Strike and Littlest Pet Shop.

EA discontinued the Headgate name in 2017, as part of the closure of EA Utah that same year.

Dreamworks Interactive (1995-2013)

Created as a third wheel studio by Microsoft and DreamWorks, the gaming studio was headed by Jaws and Indiana Jones director Steven Spielberg.

They, like Bullfrog and Westwood before, began making games to then be published by EA, most notably the Medal of Honor series.

EA then bought Dreamworks Interactive in 2000 which became EA Pacific, before being merged with Westwood Studios to form EA Los Angeles in 2003.

In May of 2013, Dreamworks Interactive was separated from EA Los Angeles and rebranded to DICE Los Angeles, who went on to develop Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 1, two of EA's most successfully games to date.

BioWare (1995-2013/2023 or 2024?)
DISCLAIMER: (This only makes the list on a technicality, as though BioWare still exists, it's main HQ in San Francisco was closed in 2013 by EA and has been loosing developers since the disastrous release of 2017's  Mass Effect: Andromeda and 2019's Anthem.

EA has announced the studio will close but have not given the media an exact dissolution date, many speculate the date would either be 2023 or 2024.

So for the time being, consider this an honourable mention.)

Before being bought by EA in 2007, BioWare along with Obsidian Entertainment, Aspyr Media, and LucasArts publishing the famous Knights of the Old Republic (KOR but known within the Star Wars community as KotOr) games between 2003 and 2022, with publishing now controlled by EA.

Following their acquisition by EA, the began making their Mass Effect series, which captured the minds of gamers with the hundreds of possible choices leading to many possible endings in all three games.

That being said, Mass Effect 3 bombed on released due to promises being unkept, glitches galore, the child hologram ending, and gamers having to pay real world cold hard cash for the real ending.

As mentioned in the disclaimer, BioWare's head office in San Francisco shut it's doors in 2013, and since 2017 has been laying off developers pending dissolution by EA.

It is only a matter of time before life support for BioWare is terminated.

Mythic Entertainment (1995-2014)

Formed in 1995 after the merger of AUS and Interesting Systems, Mythic was best known for their only game at the time called Dark Age of Camelot, which beat low sales expectations predicted by Electronic Gaming Monthly and Game Pro Magazine.

In 2003, they successfully sued Microsoft for Trademark Infringement, but due to the legal fees being underrepresented went broke.

EA then bought Mythic in 2006 to produce MMORPGs to combat Activision-Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which was the hot MMORPG at the time.

In 2009, they merged with BioWare to create one big studio to create both RPGs and MMOs called BioWare-Mythic.

However, this merger was reversed in 2012, and Mythic Entertainment was turned back into it's own studio under EA oversight.

Mythic immediately shut their doors in early 2014, after developing the mobile reboot of Dungeon Keeper mentioned previously.

Later that year, EA created a new studio for the old Myhtic team called Broadsword to maintain servers on Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online.

Phenomic Game Development (1997-2013)

Founded in Germany by Volker Wertich, the studio only had two IPs to their name before being purchased by EA in 2006, those being the Settlers series and the SpellForce franchise.

After being purchased by EA, the studio began work on RTS games including BattleForge, Lord of Ultima, and C&C: Tiberium Alliances.

The studio closed down in 2013, following EA's restructuring plan that year.

Pandemic Studios (1998-2009)

Founded as a subsidiary by EA's rival Activision with offices in both the United States and California, their first two games were sequels to already existing Activision properties: Battlezone II: Combat Commander, and Dark Reign II.

When not developing sequels and prequels for existing Activision franchises, Pandemic made Destroy All Humans!, Full Spectrum Warrior (A game used by the US Army to experiment on VR training for soldiers), and the original Star Wars: Battlefront games before Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm and LucasArts in 2012.

In 2007 they were sold off to EA by Activision after LucusArts forced them to stop making Star Wars: Battlefront III, upon their discovery that BioWare had partnered with Pandemic Studios behind their parent company's backs a year earlier.

In 2008, EA closed Pandemic Australia on Christmas, before shutting down Pandemic USA the next year, due to the failure to make a tie in Batman game for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.

This was a blessing in disguise for under-the-weather British gaming studio Rocksteady, now owned by WB Games, who used the opportunity to make Batman: Arkham Asylum, which went on to sell millions of copies worldwide and resulted in three sequels for and a remaster for the Xbox One and PS4.

In 2015, 4 years after Pandemic was shut down, EA was granted the video games rights for Star Wars by Disney, after which they resurrected the Battlefront series but not Pandemic Studios as they opted to use DICE instead, with the first EA Battlefront game being criticized for lacking a single player campaign, lack of content upon release, and the expensive season pass.

Whilst their second attempt of creating a Battlefront game in 2017 derailed the entire video game industry for a second time, as the game's lootboxes became the biggest gaming scandal since GamerGate, resulting in new laws created to regulate and even ban lootboxes in some countries.

Even the Mouse House wasn't having it, as Disney threatened to revoke their video game rights if they didn't fix the game.

Black Box Games (1998-2013)

One of Canada's first domestic video game studios, Black Box was founded by former Sega and Midway developers.

Black Box created the Need For Speed franchise, which capitalized on the success of Grand Turismo and later the Fast and Furious movie franchise.

EA cashed in on the trend by buying Black Box in 2002, during the development of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2.

After being bought by EA, they were put to work making micro-transaction friendly versions of Need for Speed and also created the Skate Trilogy and Mirror's Edge series, two of their most popular IPs after their acquisition by Electronic Arts.

In 2013, after 5 years of staff layoffs, the studio was shut down and merged with PopCap Games that same year, makers of the Plants vs Zombies mobile games and it's Garden Warfare TPS franchise.

Visceral Games (1998-2017)

One of two studios on this list to have been created by EA themselves, not bought from another publisher or the studio's creator, Visceral first made licensed games including CyberTiger, The Simpsons Game, and a tie-in-game for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

It wasn't until 2008 that the cemented themselves as game makers, when they made Dead Space: One of the most beloved horror games and horror game IPs in history, spawning two sequels, movies, a TV show, books, web comics, and lots of merchandise.

Though this wasn't without controversy, as both EA and Visceral Games had to apologize to the ESRB and PEGI video game classification boards, after Dead Space 2's adverts dubbed: "Your mom hates Dead Space 2", were alleged to be targeting under 18s and under 15s to the horror game.

Following the release of Dead Space 3 in 2013, players were shocked when it turned out you had to pay real money for a DLC which had the true ending, repeating the same mistake BioWare made the previous year.

After the rush-job that was 2015's Battlefield Hardline, often criticized by players for being a cops and robbers reskin of Battlefield 4 which Visceral had developed along with Battlefield developers DICE, EA shut down Visceral in October of 2017.

At the time they were working on a single player Star Wars game, which would later become the critically successful Jedi: Fallen Order, developed by Respawn Entertainment of Titanfall and Apex Legends fame.

PlayFish (2007-2013)

Established in 2007 by developers Kristian Segerstrale, Sebastien de Halleux, Sami Lababidi, and Shukuri Shammas on the cusp of the Great Recession, Playfish was based in the UK's capital city of London and developed browser games as well as interactive content for Facebook.

EA bought the studio in 2009, by 2011, player numbers were reaching 55 Million worldwide per month.

By 2013, due to internal disagreements all four original founders left PlayFish, and EA soon afterwards quietly shut down the studio that same year, whilst support for their browser games and Facebook tie-ins were ceased in 2014.

Victory Games (2010-2013)

Like Visceral Games, Victory Games was an in-house studio launched by EA.

Their goals were to continue supporting the C&C franchise during a sudden slump in the games popularity following the 2008 release of C&C: Red Alert 3.

In October of 2013, the brand new studio shut it's doors as quickly as it opened, as their mobile C&C game was cancleed during Alpha Testing.