Maxis is an American video game developer and a division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by EA in 1997. Maxis is best known for its simulation games, including The Sims, Spore and SimCity.
The Sims Online, also known as EA-Land, was a massively multiplayer online variation on Maxis' computer game The Sims. It was published by Electronic Arts and released in December 2002 for Microsoft Windows. The game was sold in retail stores in North America and Japan and could also be downloaded worldwide through the EA.com online store, though the game was English-only and had no official translations. The game charged a subscription fee of US $9.99 per month. In March 2007, EA announced that the product would be re-branded as EA-Land and major enhancements would be made. About a year later, EA announced that the game would shut down all activity on August 1, 2008.
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It is the second-largest gaming company in the Americas and Europe by revenue and market capitalization after Activision Blizzard and ahead of Take-Two Interactive, and Ubisoft as of May 2020.
The Sims 2 is a 2004 strategic life simulation video game developed in Redwood City, California studio of Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to The Sims.
GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1996 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for the game, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameSpy brand to other video game publishers through a newly established company, GameSpy Industries, which also incorporated his Planet Network of video game news and information websites, and GameSpy.com.
A video mashup combines multiple pre-existing video sources with no discernible relation with each other into a unified video. These are derivative works as defined by the United States Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. § 101, and as such, may find protection from copyright claims under the doctrine of fair use. Examples of mashup videos include movie trailer remixes, vids, YouTube Poop, Wishfie Reaction Videos, and supercuts.
Origin is a digital distribution platform developed by Electronic Arts for purchasing and playing video games. The platform's software client is available for personal computer and mobile platforms.
The Sims 3 is a 2009 life simulation video game developed by the Redwood Shores studio of Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Part of The Sims series, it is the sequel to The Sims 2. It was released on June 2, 2009, for OS X, Microsoft Windows and smartphone versions. Console versions were released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo DS in October 2010 and a month later for Wii. The Windows Phone version was released on October 15, 2010. A Nintendo 3DS version, released on March 27, 2011, was one of its launch titles.
Luc Barthelet former CTO and President of Technology at EA, is now general manager of the Cloud Services team at Unity Technologies
Spore is a video game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright, released in September 2008. The game has drawn wide attention for its ability to simulate the development of a species on a galactic scope, using its innovation of user-guided evolution via the use of procedural generation for many of the components of the game, providing vast scope and open-ended gameplay.
Flektor was a web application that allowed users the ability to create and “mashup” their own content and share it via email, on social networking websites MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Digg, eBay or on personal blogs. The company’s website (Flektor.com) launched on April 2, 2007 and over 40,000 people began utilizing its features just one month later. Flektor closed down in January 2009.
The Sims is a series of life simulation video games developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and it is one of the best-selling video game series of all time.
The Sims Carnival was a casual games series created by Electronic Arts. The Sims Carnival had two separate product lines. First, it was an online community of crowd-sourced games. Second, it was a line of packaged game titles sold via retail stores and digital download.
SingShot Media was initially a social networking song-sharing platform, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, United States. They were acquired by Electronic Arts on February 12, 2007. It was acquired in order to expand EA's community-building and user-generated content. The online The Sims on Stage was created by the company after their acquisition by EA.
Spore is a 2008 life simulation real-time strategy God game developed by Maxis, published by Electronic Arts and designed by Will Wright, and was released for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Covering many genres including action, real-time strategy, and role-playing games, Spore allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a microscopic organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. Throughout each stage, players are able to use various creators to produce content for their games. These are then automatically uploaded to the online Sporepedia and are accessible by other players for download.
Bix was a web service that was best known for its online competitions. The site provided self-service tools for the creation of contests. After a user created the contest, other members could enter and vote on the outcome of those contests. The company was founded in February 2006 and received venture funding from Trinity Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.
Playfish, currently a property of Electronic Arts, was a developer of free-to-play social network games. Playfish was founded in 2007 by Kristian Segerstråle, Sebastien de Halleux, Sami Lababidi, and Shukri Shammas. It closed in 2013. Playfish in the past had attracted up to 55 million users a month, with over 37 million users coming from Facebook users. In October 2008, they secured US$17 million in venture capital funding from Accel Partners and Index Ventures.
DramaFever was a video streaming website owned by Warner Bros. that offered on-demand streaming video of documentaries, movies, and TV shows with subtitles. DramaFever's content offering was both ad-supported for regular users and available in high definition for premium subscribers.
The Sims 4 is a 2014 life simulation video game developed by the Redwood Shores studio of Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fourth major title in The Sims series and was originally announced on May 6, 2013. It was released in North America on September 2, 2014, for Microsoft Windows. A Mac-compatible version of the game was released on February 17, 2015. The Sims 4 is the first PC game to top all-format charts in two years. The game has received mixed reviews since its release, with the majority of criticism directed towards its lack of content.
