ELECTRONIC ARTS/ORIGIN LAUNCHES TEST OF NEW INTERNET GAMING TECHNOLOGY;
Ultima Online debuts with over 3,000 participants

AUSTIN, TX., April 1, 1996 - ORIGIN Systems, Inc., a wholly-owned
subsidiary of Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS), today launched its first
Internet test of online gaming with a multiplayer online version of
Ultima., one of the most successful and highly-acclaimed series of
role-playing games in the entertainment software industry. The Ultima
Online test, which begins today and runs for a week, will have more than
3,000 participants from all over world. Players from as far away as
Australia, Germany, Japan and Russia are expected to participate. 

Requests for participation in the test were so numerous, the company had to
stop accepting applications after just one week and limit the number to
approximately 3,000, which exceeded the early estimates that perhaps 500
to 1,000 game players would enroll in that time frame. "We were astounded
by the reaction," said Richard Garriott, creator of the Ultima series and
founder of ORIGIN Systems. "Unlike others who have tried to do gaming on
dedicated online services, we are leading the charge for games running on
the Internet. We believe the future holds great promise for online gaming
and this is our first step in the learning process. Of course, we think we
can have lots of fun doing it." 

"We believe we have set a new standard for online gaming with rich,
fully-rendered graphics and stunning visual effects in millions of
colors," continued Mr. Garriott. In the Ultima Online test game,
participants will be able to have real-time conversations, engage in
combat, purchase necessary items and experience the effects of day and
night. The on-screen characters in Ultima Online are fully-customizable,
allowing the player to choose attributes such as the gender, hair color
and clothing desired. The character then is stored in the game server and
can be called up at any time the participant wishes to play. 

Ultima Online runs 24-hours a day, the world always evolving and changing,
whether participants are playing or not. The game was designed from the
ground up to be self-regulating and self-generating. For example, if a
dragon's preferred food is deer, and the players kill all the deer, the
dragon may turn on the town (and townspeople!) in search of food. A
simulated resource system allows the game to manage itself so that it can
generate quests, conversations, non-player characters, and monsters, on
its own. 

"Basically, we're testing to see how the technology will perform with
hundreds of people over the Internet," says Starr Long, Ultima Online's
associate producer. "We're interested to see how many players can fit
together on a map and how the servers hold up with the demand." 

Ultima Online runs under Windows '95 native. Test participants have
Internet access and the ability to send and receive TCP/IP packets to and
from sites on the Internet (SLIP or PPP). 

ORIGIN Systems, based in Austin, Texas, develops and publishes
state-of-the-art entertainment software, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Electronic Arts. 

Electronic Arts, headquartered in San Mateo, California, is a leading
interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA has an
annual sales rate of over $520 million. The company develops, publishes
and distributes software worldwide for personal computers and advanced
entertainment systems such as the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Electronic
Arts markets its products worldwide under five brand names: EA SPORTS,
Electronic Arts Studio, Origin Systems Inc., Bullfrog Productions Ltd. and
Jane's Combat Simulations. EA has subsidiaries in Australia, Canada,
France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom,
Austin, Texas, and Seattle, Washington. More information about EA's
products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at
http://www.ea.com. 

Electronic Arts
1450 Fashion Island Blvd
San Mateo, CA 94404
415-571-7171
 
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