Top Game Site On the Internet Gets Stickier; Free Games Draw High Traffic to EA.com; EA.com Claims 40 Percent of Overall Minutes Spent Playing Online Games

Business Wire, March 5, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 5, 2002

EA.com(SM) today announced that it is continuing to achieve significant increases in unique visitors and time spent on the No. 1 game site on the Internet. In January 2002, EA.com tallied 12.1 million unique visitors, officially marking it as the most popular game site on the Web. In addition, EA.com is the fourth largest site in terms of minutes spent online as listed by the Jupiter Media Metrix Top 100 for the entire Internet.

EA.com's members logged 4.4 billion minutes playing games on the site in January, giving the site a 40 percent share of the overall online game market. Site visitors average more than an hour and ten minutes of play per day, according to the latest data released by Jupiter Media Metrix. The amount of time players spent on EA.com has rocketed up more than 80 percent since July 2001.

In addition, data revealed that the popularity of the site's ad-supported content is a key driving force behind EA.com's overall growth. EA.com's ad-supported content, powered by pogo.com(TM), hosts an assortment of free, wildly popular puzzle and word games such as Poppit!(TM) and Word Whomp(TM) as well as more traditional card and board games like Spades and Dominoes.

"We are pleased with the consistent growth we're seeing on EA.com not only in terms of unique visitors, but also the amount of time people are spending on the site," said Erick Hachenburg, general manager of EA.com. "The latest metrix clearly validates that we are providing the kind of entertainment experience that consumers truly crave. We also believe that advertisers will recognize EA.com's success and commitment to remain one of the stickiest sites on the Web."

EA.com will enhance its offerings in 2002 by continuing to unveil new, fun and easy-to-access free games as well as immersive subscription-based experiences. On the pogo.com front, Pebble Beach(TM) Golf and a word game called Jumble Bees were released in early February. On the subscription side of the business, Ultima Online(TM) Lord Blackthorn's Revenge was also released in February. The latest version of the massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) game has already witnessed higher retail demand than any preceeding UO expansion pack. Later this year, EA will launch its much-anticipated subscription game, The Sims Online(TM).

About EA.com

EA.com, which went live in October of 2000, is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. and is a business division of Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS), the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Under an agreement with America Online, Inc. (AOL), the world's leading interactive services company, EA.com provides exclusive games programming for the AOL(R) Games channel, AOL.COM, Netscape.com, ICQ, CompuServe, in addition to the EA.com home site. More information can be found at www.info.ea.com.

Note to Editors: Electronic Arts, The Sims Online, Ultima and Ultima Online are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. EA.COM is a service mark of EA.com. Word Whomp and Poppit! are trademarks of Pogo Corporation. Pebble Beach is a registered trademark of Pebble Beach Company used under license by Electronic Arts Inc. AOL is a registered trademark of America Online, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.