EA Vancouver

EA Vancouver (formerly known as EA Burnaby, then EA Canada) is a Canadian video game developer located in Burnaby, British Columbia. The development studio opened as Distinctive Software in January 1983, and is also Electronic Arts's largest and oldest studio. EA Vancouver employs approximately 1,300 people, and houses the world's largest video game test operation. It is best known for developing a lot of EA Sports and EA Sports BIG titles, including EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA), NHL, SSX, NBA Street, NFL Street, EA Sports UFC, and FIFA Street titles, as well as a number of NBA Live and NCAA Basketball titles between 1994 and 2009.

Premises

The campus consists of a motion-capture studio, twenty-two rooms for composing, fourteen video editing suites, three production studios, a wing for audio compositions, and a quality assurance department. There are also facilities such as fitness rooms, two theatres, a cafeteria, coffee bars, a soccer field, and several arcades.

History

Electronic Arts (EA), based in Redwood City, California, acquired Distinctive Software in 1991 for $11 million and renamed Distinctive Software to EA Canada. At the time of the business acquisition, Distinctive Software was noted for developing a number of racing and sporting games published under the Accolade brand.

Distinctive Software

Distinctive Software, Inc. was a Canadian video game developer established in Burnaby, British Columbia, by Don Mattrick and Jeff Sember after their success with the game Evolution. Mattrick (age 17) and Jeff Sember approached Sydney Development Corporation, who agreed to publish Evolution in 1982. Distinctive Software was known in the late 1980s and early 1990s for their racing and sports video games, including the Test Drive series, Stunts, 4D Boxing, and Hardball II. In 1991, Distinctive was acquired by Electronic Arts in a deal worth US$10 million and became EA Canada, which is where the most EA Sports branded games are developed.

Unlimited Software and lawsuit

In 1989, programmers Pete Gardner and Amory Wong of Distinctive, under the pseudonym USI (Unlimited Software, Inc.), converted Sega's arcade game Out Run for MS-DOS. They used several software libraries they had developed for Test Drive II. Consequently, Accolade charged that Distinctive violated a working agreement, and sued. Accolade sought a preliminary injunction against the distribution and sale of Out Run. Distinctive Software argued that it had only used source code that did routine functions, such as clearing the video screen and that Accolade did not own a copyright on those functions. Accolade argued that their contract for Test Drive II gave them the ownership and copyright of the final product—the game—and the source code used to create it. Distinctive Software won; the court ruled that "the licensing agreement transfers to Accolade the copyright to the concept and design of the video game but not the underlying source code." The court also found that Accolade had failed to demonstrate that the balance of hardships was in its favour.

EA Canada

Since becoming EA Canada, EA Canada has developed many EA Games, EA Sports, and EA Sports BIG games.

EA Seattle, formerly Manley & Associates, was closed in 2002. Half the jobs were moved to EA Vancouver.

EA acquired Black Box Games in 2002 and Black Box Games became part of EA Canada under the name of EA Black Box. EA Black Box later became an independent EA studio in 2005. After its acquisition, EA Black Box became the home of several franchises, such as Need for Speed and Skate. The studio was later shut down in 2013, after a series of restructurings and layoffs within EA.

In 2011, EA Canada acquired Bight Games, a maker of freemium games.

Games developed

By Distinctive Software

By EA Canada

See also

• Project Ragtag, assisted in development

External links

• at MobyGames
• at MobyGames