EA Salt Lake was an American video game developer located in

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, United States. It was owned by video game publisher

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

(EA).

History

EA Salt Lake was founded by the studio's president, Vance Cook, as Headgate Studios in 1992. As a veteran programmer for years at Access Software, the onetime premier developer of golf simulations, Cook had the experience and knowledge of how to create a rewarding golfing experience. Headgate's first product was PentaCalc, a scientific calculator for Windows. In April 1996 the studio was purchased by

Sierra On-Line Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genr ...

. Initially, Headgate solely developed golf games published by Sierra, starting with '' Front Page Sports: Golf''. On February 22, 1999 Sierra announced a major restructuring of their company, and sold the rights of the original studio back to Cook as a new corporate entity. In 2000, Headgate began publishing games through

. Headgate began developing ''

Tiger Woods PGA Tour ''PGA Tour'' is a series of golf video games developed and published by Electronic Arts - and later their EA Sports sub-label - since 1990. The series primarily features courses featured on the U.S. PGA Tour, and other notable courses (such as t ...

'' for the PC based on their existing golf engine. They were assigned by EA to develop the title on PlayStation 2 for the 2007 title, and Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Wii for the 2008 title. Headgate developed every Microsoft Windows version of the ''

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network ...

franchise from 2000 to 2007. Headgate's golf games consistently got high praise from industry reviewers and have won numerous industry awards. On December 1, 2006, Headgate Studios was acquired by Electronic Arts. Headgate was renamed EA Salt Lake. The studios' focus was redirected to developing games for Nintendo's new console, the Wii. On July 21, 2010, EA Salt Lake was moved from its home in

Bountiful, Utah Bountiful is Davis city. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 42,552, a three percent increase over the 2000 figure of 41,301. The city grew rapidly during the suburb growth of the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and was Davis County's l ...

to a new state-of-the-art facility in downtown

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. In 2011, EA Salt Lake was moved to the

Maxis 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 ...

division of Electronic Arts, where it developed four expansion packs for the

life simulation game Life simulation games form a subgenre of simulation video games in which the player lives or controls one or more virtual characters (human or otherwise). Such a game can revolve around "individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation ...

'' The Sims 3''. After the last expansion pack for ''The Sims 3'', '' Into the Future'', was released, a restructure to focus on mobile titles took place in January 2014. EA closed down the studio in April 2017.

Games developed

Notes

References

External links

* {{Electronic Arts American companies established in 1992 American companies disestablished in 2017 Electronic Arts Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game companies established in 1992 Video game companies disestablished in 2017 Video game development companies Defunct companies based in Utah 1992 establishments in Utah 2017 disestablishments in Utah