dc.internet.com/news/article.php/807721
By Roy Mark July 24, 2001 Four months after acquiring popular gaming site pogo.com, Electronic Arts has fully integrated the site's games into EA's subsidiary, EA.com and America Online's games destination. Under an agreement with the 30-million member strong AOL, EA.com provides exclusive games programming for the AOL Games channel, AOL.com, Netscape.com, ICQ, and CompuServe. The addition of pogo.com, cited as the stickiest site on the Internet in 2000 by Jupiter/Media Metrix, should further solidify EA.com and the AOL Games Channels as the most popular gaming sites worldwide. EA officials said EA.com now has 22 million registered users. "AOL members have shown a strong enthusiasm for online games and the integration of pogo.com will only enhance their interactive gaming experience," said Leighton Webb, director of the AOL Games Channel. The updated EA.com site includes three channels: pogo.com, providing visitors with free mass-market games, many of which offer cash prizes and drawings; and the EA Games and EA Sports channels offering visitors a variety of free and premium subscription-based sports, action, adventure, simulation and role playing experiences. We believe our visitors and members are going to like the changes we've made to the EA.com site," said Erick Hachenburg, chief operating officer of the Redwood City, Calif.-based EA.com. "It's easier to navigate and the pogo.com games load quickly, getting visitors right into the action. We're looking forward to having current members visit us at EA.com and winning over new members with some captivating new games on the site like pogo.com's wildly popular puzzle games Poppit! and Sweet Tooth or one of our fun word games such as Word Whomp." With the integration of pogo.com content, EA.com has updated its site and made it easier to navigate and access content. Pogo.com replaces the EA Lounge and Clubroom channels, bringing 43 fresh games to EA.com along with its token and prize system. Twenty-three of these games offer the chance to win cash. Pogo.com also introduces new genres to EA.com's mass-market channel via word, arcade, casino, bingo and lotto games along with classic card and board games. Like all games on EA.com, those on pogo.com support a chat feature, helping to unify the site's growing community and making it more fun to play games. EA.com will also sport a more consistent overall look using logos and navigation buttons in the upper left corner of all screens. Founded in 1982, Electronic Arts posted revenues of more than $1.3 billion for fiscal 2001. The company develops, publishes and distributes software worldwide for the Internet, personal computers and video game systems. |
