Before becoming the company known for its annual sequels and lack of consideration for its players (and employees), Electronic Arts studio truly lived up to its name, which reflected its ambition to create electronic art. Founded in 1982 by a dreamer named Trip Hawkins, a defector from Apple, and initially renamed Amazin’ Games, the company’s goal was to find the best talent and elevate them to rock star status.
The term ‘rock stars’ is far from overused. EA wants to offer the best to the developers who join them. The company wants to offer them the best possible working conditions (yes, really) and the popularity they deserve, in particular by selling their games without going through distribution intermediaries. Developers should not just be considered creators. They should be artists, pioneers, revolutionaries, as Time Magazine headlined in 1983 with the famous advertisement ‘Can A Computer Make You Cry?’
To achieve his goals, Trip Hawkins decided to adopt the codes established by the music industry. Backed by numerous investors even before the company began releasing games in 1983, Hawkins wanted to offer his employees the same contractual terms as in the music industry. As a result, the first developers to sign with the publisher signed contracts with royalties of up to 20–25% per game sold, earning more than EA executives! This position was fully embraced by its founder, at a time when the industry was still largely based on fixed salaries.
This claim continued on the covers, where the names of the developers were associated with the titles they designed. Hawkins believed that if players recognised the names of the developers, it would encourage them to buy their titles. This strategy paid off until some of them left to found other studios. The packaging, which was completely unique, was also inspired by the world of music. To compensate for the technical limitations of the consoles and microcomputers of the time, publishers had to pay close attention to the presentation of their titles. Inspired by Budd Steinhilber and Barry Deutsch (creators of the first Electronic Arts logo), EA went even further: its ‘album’ period was born.
It was a concept of square covers with unique illustrations and intentions, often commissioned before the end of development, containing game disks, explanations of the rules of the game, a few words from the developers (not edited internally! (spelling mistakes were even kept)) and additional content that would be sold as DLC today. Far from being just a nod to the past, the format was designed to be easily identifiable but above all to parasitise record shops, where sales opportunities were considered to be higher. The similarities don’t end there, going so far as to borrow from certain existing albums, such as the photo in the centre of the Archon leaflet (one of my all-time favourite covers) which, in my opinion, almost reinterprets the cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s album Bookends. And while Budd Steinhilber acknowledged that he drew inspiration from pop and folk references from the 1960s and 1970s, the Simon and Garfunkel reference was never mentioned (probably for rights reasons).
While the first ‘albums’ (One on One, Worms! and Pinball) set the tone for the design, EA actually produced four types of packaging: the basic three-panel variant, a two-panel variant, a traditional sleeve without panels (used for re-releases of its classics) and a box set variant. A total of around sixty games would benefit from this unique feature, from The Bard’s Tale to titles not produced by EA teams, such as Marble Madness, originally an Atari Games title. Electronic Arts would even inspire other publishers, such as Infocom, Beyond Software and Firebird.
But economic reality caught up with fantasy. The albums were too subject to fluctuations in the quality of the titles and too dependent on individual talent. They were too expensive to produce, too costly in terms of logistics, and EA’s economic growth required standardisation of the creative processes. It was the end of an era that had barely begun, as EA’s last albums were released between 1987 and 1988. It was the end of a dream for Trip Hawkins, consumed by his own project, which had become a cash machine for producing large-scale products; a mundane business indeed. Hawkins left in 1991 to found another utopia. The story of a broken console that dreamed clumsily in 3DO.
But to end on a less bitter note, here are some photos of these forgotten masterpieces.
Thanks to Douglas Alves and JoPe for sharing their knowledge, which helped to enhance the content of this analysis. Thanks to Ernst Krogtoft for his kindness and for allowing us to use many of the images from a previous article he wrote on his blog, ‘retro365’. See below.
If you would like to find out more:
https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?t=258
https://retro365.blog/2018/07/25/a-bit-from-my-personal-collection-electronic-arts-the-albumstyle-era/
