10 Video Game Studios Killed By Electronic Arts
3. Maxis (1987 - 2016)
Created in 1987 by Will Wright, Maxis was founded with the sole intention of publishing their breakout title SimCity. Maxis popularised, and pretty much invented, the "sim" genre of video games, with their most popular example being The Sims line of video games. Unfortunately, following a string of commercial failures, Maxis was eventually acquired by EA in 1997.
Dissimilar to most other studios on this list, Maxis is still technically alive and well. Maybe "well" is a bit of an overstatement, but they're still kicking at least. You see, instead of being shut down outright Maxis were doomed to suffer an even worse fate... mobile gaming *shudders*.
EA later followed their announcement with some nonsense about "organizational structure" but the damage had already been done. With their main studio Maxis Emeryville closed, the brand lives on in name only these days.
Maxis' employees were "given opportunities to explore" positions within EA - which is corporate speak for "we fired them" - and the studio's final game, before being relegated to a mobile gaming publisher that is, was The Sims 4 back in 2014.