Electronic Arts makes one of every four videogames sold in the world (and that"s before it took The Sims online). CEO Larry Probst says he"s just getting started building "the greatest entertainment company ever."
Until her boss showed up, Hecubah, queen of the undead, was having a pretty good day at work. It was the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo, and the villainess of the chop-"em-up role-playing PC game Nox had young men flocking to the Electronic Arts booth in Los Angeles"s Convention Center. Some undoubtedly came to hear about EA"s lineup of new videogames, but many stayed just to stare at the actress playing Hecubah -- in devil horns, red contact lenses, and a dominatrix corset just a few threads shy of a misdemeanor rap.
As the gamers milled and gawked, Larry Probst, CEO and chairman of Electronic Arts, pushed his way through. The sight of the queen stopped the 52-year-old executive in his tracks. Blanching, he turned to an assistant, and within seconds one of his minions had backed Hecubah into an inconspicuous corner while another raced off to get her some clothes. When the queen returned to work, she was wearing a skirt. "We want the focus at E3 to be on our products," Probst says about the incident, "not on scantily clad women."
Dressing the "booth babes," as they"re inelegantly known at E3, may not be the most significant branding initiative of Probst"s 18-year tenure at Electronic Arts, but it"s a perfect metaphor for his vision of his company. In an industry that was born catering to adolescent male fantasies, Probst has turned EA into the runaway market leader by mining a largely PG audience. One of every four digital games sold worldwide this year carried the EA logo, despite the fact that the company has no product to compete with raunchy titles like the Grand Theft Auto series, unquestionably the hottest console franchise in the business.
EA"s gentler focus is evident in its lineup for the all-important 2002 holiday season. Of the 35 titles being rolled out, several are all-but-guaranteed blockbusters -- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, James Bond 007: NightFire, NBA Live 2003, and the highly anticipated The Sims Online, the Web version of the best-selling PC game. The last, which went live on Dec. 3, could bring EA as much as $100 million a year.