Blast Into EA's Past
Gamasutra has put together a thorough article on the history of Electronic Arts. It begins with the events surrounding the company's 1982 founding and covers many major milestones that contributed to its growth over the last 25 years. Page 4 gets into the acquisitions of studios such as Maxis, Origin and Westwood that bolstered the EA lineup in the mid nineties. Wing Commander is mentioned there and also cited as a major 3DO title when the company's original founder partnered with EA to launch the system. It's kind of neat to read about how some of EA's current hit franchises came to be. You can find the full article here.
Electronic Arts purchased its first outside development studio, Distinctive Software, in 1991. Based near Vancouver, British Columbia, Distinctive had previously worked on the Hardball and Test Drive series’ for EA’s competitor Accolade. After joining EA, they set to work on several of EA’s sports franchises and created the long-running Need for Speed series. Distinctive was later renamed EA Canada and is now one of the largest studios in Electronic Arts’ organization.
In 1992, Richard Garriott’s Origin Systems joined the fold. The Austin-based studio would go on to develop new volumes in Garriott’s Ultima and Chris Roberts’ Wing Commander series as well as the groundbreaking Ultima Online. Other important games from Origin included Crusader, Privateer, and Warren Spector’s System Shock. AH-64D Longbow, the first installment in the Jane’s Combat Simulations series, was also developed at Origin.
Despite its successes, Origin had difficulty integrating with EA and in 1999, after the release of Ultima IX, Garriott left the company. Later, several of Origin’s high-profile projects were canceled and the company was dissolved in 2004.
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