Pioneers of the industry: Electronic Arts

Welcome to PART II of our celebration of Electronic Arts (EA) 40th anniversary! In this ongoing series, we will be posting screenshots of some of the most beloved titles from EA's vast catalogue of video games. This time we are presenting some of the greatest EA titles from the years 1989–1993.

In 1991, the company founder Trip Hawkins retired from his position as the CEO and found the 3DO Company. During Hawkins' tenure, EA had become a force to reckon with dozens of major game releases under its belt. The company was also known for its innovative and even genre-defining titles. These included the open-ended city-builder SimCity by Will Wright and Populous which many consider the first so-called God game.

The latter made its designer Peter Molyneux and his studio Bullfrog Studios hot names in the business. Electronic Arts were so happy with the developer, and their games like Flood and Powermonger (pictured here), that they eventually published all of the Bullfrog games until they acquired the studio in 1995.

The president of EA, Larry Probst, became the next CEO after Trip Hawkins. While Probst may not have been a visionary like his predecessor, he was still a seasoned veteran in an industry that was only a decade old.

Probst had started as early as 1982 at Activision and then joined Electronic Arts in 1986. The year Probst took on his new role, EA launched one of their longest-running franchises, NHL Hockey. Probst himself would also prove to be in it for the long haul; he retired from being the company's CEO only in 2007 and remains a chairman to this day.

With Rampart, EA succeeded in creating a much-praised arcade conversion for numerous computer systems. In 1992, the Commodore 64 was also supplied with this excellent medieval strategy game. The last two pictures show the DOS version of Space Hulk (1993). This space strategy was very popular with PC gamers.