Square Electronic Arts L. L. C., also known as Square EA, was a joint venture between console video game developers Square and Electronic Arts.

Announced on April 27, 1998, Square EA was based in Costa Mesa, California and operated under the supervision of Square president and CEO Jun Iwasaki, and was responsible for publishing and marketing all games produced by Square in North America.

Under the terms of the agreement, Electronic Arts owned 30 percent of Square EA, and Square owned 30 percent of EA Square.

Square EA proved to be very successful, and during its five years of existence released a higher proportion of localized Square titles to the American market than ever before.

EA Square, on the other hand, was somewhat less successful, and struggled to make an impact on the Asian videogame market, which has been traditionally difficult for American game developers to break into.

Following the announcement of the merger between Square and former competitor Enix in 2003, Square purchased back Electronic Arts ' stake in Square EA, and folded it back into Square Soft, Inc., its North American subsidiary, which was subsequently renamed Square Enix U. S. A., Inc. ( now Square Enix, Inc .) and continues to publish Square Enix's titles in North America.

Most video game publishers maintain development studios, such as Electronic Arts's EA Canada, Square Enix's studios, Activision's Radical Entertainment, Nintendo EAD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog.

Piano Collections Final Fantasy X, a collection of piano arrangements of the original soundtracks by Masashi Hamauzu and performed by Aki Kuroda, was released by DigiCube in 2002 and re-released by Square EA in 2004.

Along with Westwood, EA had also acquired Virgin Interactive's development studio based in Irvine, California.

In early 2009 EA Games announced that they have bought the rights for a game from Red Eagle Entertainment, who had started programming it a few months earlier.

However, EA had no direct part in the development of the title.

The game was set to be released for Sony's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and for personal computers, but the game was delayed and on 2 February 2007, EA announced that the game had been put on an indefinite hiatus, and to date no further information has been released.

By the early 2000s, EA had become one of the world's largest third-party publishers.

On May 4, 2011, EA reported $ 3. 8 billion in revenues for the fiscal year ending March 2011, and on January 13, 2012, EA announced that it had exceeded $ 1 billion in digital revenue during the previous calendar year.

In July 2011, EA announced that it had acquired PopCap Games, the company behind hits such as Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled.

On July 27, 2011, EA reported fiscal first-quarter profits had more than doubled on brisk sales of " highly-anticipated sports and shooter games ".

While at Apple, Hawkins had enjoyed company offsite meetings at Pajaro Dunes and organized such a planning offsite for EA in October 1982.

His handpicked successor is John Riccitiello, who had worked at EA for several years previously, departed for a while, and then returned.

" This statement comes a week after EA announced it was laying off 6 % about 600 of their staff positions & had a net loss for the quarter.

" I'll admit that, if you asked me years ago, I still had thoughts that EA was the Evil Empire, the company that crushes the small studios ... I'd have been surprised, if you told me a year ago that we'd end up with EA as a publisher.

In May 2008, ' EA_Spouse ' blog author Erin Hoffman, speaking to videogame industry news site Gamasutra, stated that EA had made significant progress, but may now be falling into old patterns again.

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson had said, " Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand.

EA had also received criticism for developing games that lack innovation vis-à-vis the number of gaming titles produced under the EA brand that show a history of yearly updates, particularly in their sporting franchises.

Schafer announced in July 2010 that EA had canceled the sequel to Brütal Legend.

The EA series CPU had an 8. 5 ns clock cycle ( 117 MHz ), and was built from macrocell array and gate array ICs.

was Bunten's first game for EA, originally published for the Atari 8-bit family because the Atari 800 had four controller ports.

All BRATs had four-wheel drive and the Subaru EA engine.

New wheel trims were featured on all trim levels, and station wagon variants gained white tinted indicator lenses, replacing the amber tint which had been common since the introduction of the EA.

Molyneux had become an Electronic Arts vice-president and consultant in 1994, after EA purchased a significant share of Bullfrog.

He also won the EA Sports 500 at Talladega that same year.

Since 2003, Albert has also been providing the play-by-play voice on the NBA Live video-game series on EA Sports, a role he fulfilled until NBA Live 10.

Mario series characters have also made cameos in games from other series such as SSX on Tour and NBA Street V3, both published by EA Sports.

In late October of that same year, Hasselhoff played a bit part in the EA real time strategy video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 as vice president of the United States, while also starring in its promotional microsite, conquerthislife. com.

" Phat Planet " was also used in the animated television series Beast Machines, the simulation racing games F1 2000 by EA Sports and Racedriver GRID by Codemasters.

* The Sims Online, a massively multiplayer game ( also known as EA Land )

He is also featured in EA Games ' The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King video game, and Warner Brothers ' The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest as a boss character the player must defeat, in both games he appears in the level ' The Black Gate '.

EA also owns and operates major gaming studios in Tiburon in Orlando, Burnaby, Vancouver, Montreal and DICE in Sweden.

EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal.

EA also confirmed the departure of Kathy Vrabeck, who was given the position as former president of the EA Casual Division in May 2007.

In addition to traditional packaged-goods games, EA Games also develops massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

* Visceral Games in Redwood City, California, also has offices in Montreal, Canada and Shanghai, China ; founded as EA Redwood Shores in 1998.

EA also published a black and white animation tool called Studio / 1, and a series of Paint titles on the Macintosh: Studio / 8 and Studio / 32 ( 1990 ).

But LunarStorm has through the years also cooperated with numerous other companies including Arla, EA Games, Loka, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Aftonbladet, Sveriges Radio and Logitech.

They also appear in EA Sports ' NHL series since NHL 2004.

The XH also gained an all-new front suspension and rack and pinion steering from the EA – EL series cars.

The EA was also only produced in sedan and station wagon body styles, with the previous-model ( XF ) utility and panel van continuing in production.

In 1983, EA produced their first sports game Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One, which was also the first licensed sports game based on the names and likenesses of famous athletes.

Apart from direct age discrimination which can also be objectively justified, the general rule for direct discrimination, elaborated in EA 2010 Schedule 9, is that an employer may be exempt if it can show that having a worker fit a particular description is a " genuine occupational requirement ", so that the otherwise discriminatory practice pursues a legitimate aim and is applied proportionately.