Trip Hawkins founded Electronic Arts back in 1982. His early tagline was asking, “Can a computer make you cry?” It was a reference to the emotions that he wanted games to stir when you played them.
We asked Hawkins what he thought about the $55 billion purchase of EA, completed today, by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake Partners and Affinity Partners (led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner).
Hawkins said in a message to GamesBeat, “It seems like they will stay in their lane, but at least it’s a good lane, led by the natural recurring annual game model for sports leagues.”
“Yet I’d love to see EA become more innovative and become product leaders in new and emerging categories, like we did in EA’s first decade,” Hawkins added.
Meanwhile, Bing Gordon was at EA at its birth. He ran the marketing department and spent a total of 26 years at EA in various roles.
He said in a message to GamesBeat, “I’m very happy for Andrew and Laura. This frees up them up to do the best work of their careers. Creativity and risk-taking don’t naturally happen on the quarterly check-ins Wall Street rewards.
Those were references for EA CEO Andrew Wilson and Laura Miele, who is president of enterprise development at EA.