EA Vancouver facts for kids
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| Division | |
| Industry | Video games |
| Predecessors |
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| Founded | 1991 (as EA Canada) |
| Headquarters |
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Canada
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| Products | NHL series (1991–present) FIFA series (1993–2022) SSX series (2000–2012) NFS series (1994–2000, see EA Black Box) Skate series (2007–2010, see EA Black Box) |
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Number of employees
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1,300 |
| Parent | Electronic Arts (1991–present) |
EA Vancouver, also known as EA Burnaby or EA Canada in the past, is a big video game developer in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. This game studio started as Distinctive Software in January 1983. It is now the largest and oldest studio owned by Electronic Arts (EA). EA Vancouver has about 1,300 employees. It also has the world's biggest place for testing video games.
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What's Inside EA Vancouver?
The EA Vancouver campus is a huge place. It has many cool areas for making games. There's a special studio for motion-capture, which records how people move. This helps game characters move realistically.
The campus also has twenty-two rooms for making music and sounds. There are fourteen video editing suites to put game videos together. Three production studios help create the games. A whole section is for audio work. There's also a quality assurance department. This team makes sure games work perfectly.
Besides work areas, the campus has fun stuff too. There are fitness rooms to stay active. Two theatres are available for watching movies or presentations. You can grab food at the cafeteria or drinks at the coffee bars. There's even a soccer field and several arcades to play games!
How EA Vancouver Started
EA Vancouver is a very important studio for Electronic Arts (EA). EA is a giant American company that makes video games. They have many studios all over the world. EA bought a company called Distinctive Software in 1991. They paid $11 million for it.
After buying it, EA changed the name of Distinctive Software to EA Canada. Distinctive Software was known for making many racing and sports games. These games were published by another company called Accolade. Since becoming EA Canada, the studio has made many popular games. These include games for EA Games, EA Sports, and EA Sports BIG.
In 2002, another EA studio, EA Seattle, closed down. About half of the jobs from that studio moved to EA Vancouver. This made EA Vancouver even bigger.
EA also bought Black Box Games in 2002. Black Box Games became part of EA Canada. It was called EA Black Box. Later, in 2005, EA Black Box became its own separate EA studio. After being bought, EA Black Box became famous for games like Need for Speed and Skate. However, EA Black Box closed in 2013. This happened after some changes and job cuts at EA.
In 2011, EA Canada bought a company called Bight Games. Bight Games made freemium games. These are games that are free to play but offer extra things to buy.
Games Made by EA Vancouver
EA Vancouver has developed many popular video games over the years. They are especially known for their sports titles. Here are some of the games they have worked on:
EA Sports GamesHere are some of the games EA Vancouver developed for EA Sports:
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EA Sports BIG GamesThese are games EA Vancouver developed for EA Sports BIG. This label was known for more extreme or arcade-style sports games:
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EA Graphics Library (EAGL)
The EA Graphics Library, or EAGL, is a special game engine. A game engine is like the main software that a video game runs on. EA Canada created and developed EAGL. It was the main engine used in some of EA's games. This includes many games in the Need for Speed series. It was also used for a few sports games from EA Sports.
Different versions of the EAGL engine were used for different games:
- Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 and Need for Speed: Underground used the first version, EAGL 1.
- Need for Speed: Underground 2 used EAGL 2.
- Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Carbon used EAGL 3.
- Need for Speed: ProStreet and Need for Speed Undercover used EAGL 4. Need for Speed Undercover even used a changed version of EAGL 4. It combined it with another system called the Heroic Driving Engine.
Need for Speed: World used a changed EAGL 3 engine. It had the same physics as older games. It also had an external GUI (Graphical User Interface) made with Adobe Flash.
Later, when making Need for Speed: The Run, the studio stopped using their own engine. Instead, they started using the Frostbite 2 engine.
