Chairman: Larry Probst
CEO: Andrew Wilson
Headquarters: Redwood City, California
Website: www.ea.com

ELECTRONIC ARTS IS WORKING TO BUILD AN INCLUSIVE CULTURE AT EA AND IN THE GAMING COMMUNITY

Electronic Arts (EA) has more people playing more games on more platforms in more geographies than ever before. The company estimates about 2.6 billion people around the world play games and the average age of the player is 35 years old. As players have gotten more diverse, EA is committed to mirroring that audience in its teams, developing an inclusive culture across EA, and giving back to communities around the world to delight its global players.

“I am proud to be part of a relationship based culture inside EA where diverse perspectives thrive and serve with passionate colleagues as we continue to develop rich relationships with our communities in service of our players,” said David Kim, Head of Global Diversity Inclusion & CSR.

EA has diverse employees from all parts of the world and a dynamic, creative culture that can vary by studio, location or different communities on any given site.

“At the core, we are a creative company and having an inclusive culture enables engagement, innovation and ultimately allows different perspectives to create an incredible player experience,” said Kim. “It was important for us to go beyond awareness of unconscious bias.”

In 2016, EA launched Inclusion@EA, a global, unconscious bias training focused on awareness, identification and committed action delivered through intact teams and co-facilitated by senior leaders. Business leaders co-facilitated sessions to set expectations of leadership and demonstrate their commitment to creating an inclusive work environment.

The aim of the program is to impact individual behavior around engagement and performance as well as reduce bias in the hiring, and talent management process. The initiative is being rolled out across the world to all of EA’s 8,500 employees across more than 40 global locations after our CEO and all SVPs completed the workshop earlier this year.

PLAY TO GIVE

In 2016, EA also launched its first annual global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
campaign called Play to Give. Play to Give launched alongside EA’s large consumer event, EA PLAY, and used the spotlight to bring attention charitable organizations that aligned with EA’s CSR mission of supporting K-12 STEAM Education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) and Inclusion. EA donated a total of $1 million to five organizations: United Nations HeForShe campaign, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, Code2040, Code.org, and SpecialEffect.

To raise awareness with players of these charities, EA launched five in-game challenges for players to complete to help raise awareness. Battlefield 4 and Battlefield Hardline, Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, FIFA 16 and Madden NFL 16 all promoted Play to Give in-game, resulting in over 3.4 million engagements in the challenges. In addition, EA shared stories of these charities with media and on social, generating millions of impressions online and 34 media stories about the campaign.

PROMOTING DIVERISTY IN GAMES

EA also proudly promotes diversity within its games, with examples seen across titles launched in the past couple of years.

  • Dragon Age: Inquisition introduced EA’s first transgender character, Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi. In the game’s storyline, Krem is a lieutenant in the army who as a child grew up female, but later on in life discovered that his true gender identity is male.
  • This year, FIFA introduced its first story mode, allowing for a fictional character to be introduced for the first time. Alex Hunter is a mixed-race 17-year-old from humble roots in Clapham, London.
  • In June, EA’s Maxis studio created and launched expanded gender customization options in The Sims 4, allowing for gender neutral clothing, voice style and personality types. The feature allows players the ability to customize their characters without the gender boundaries.

“It’s important for all our players to have the tools to be creative and express themselves in an inclusive environment,” said Lyndsay Pearson, Lead Producer, The Sims 4.

EA recognizes that by creating an inclusive culture where diverse perspectives and employees thrive, they will create better games that more people around the world will be able to enjoy.