EA Partners With America Online

Electronic Arts has signed a five-year exclusive strategic relationship to create and deliver online games and entertainment for America Online. As part of the deal, EA will become exclusively responsible for AOL's Games Channel and all gaming content on America Online, AOL.com, CompuServe, Netcenter, and ICQ. And EA has guaranteed it will hand over US$81million to help support its gaming efforts on AOL over the course of the partnership.

The new gaming site on AOL will be located at AOL keyword: EA will launch during the summer of 2000 and will offer a wide scope of products for all ages and interests. EA will also be upping the ante on the Web and has announced that it will be relaunching EA.com with new features, including the ability to download and play games, find gaming opponents, and chat.

Also as part of the deal, EA has announced that it will buy News Corp's Kesmai Corporation, a company that has provided gaming content to America Online for several years. Kesmai is also known for its online gaming site, GameStorm. GameStorm provides online games like Legends of Kesmai and Jack Nicklaus Golf. Financial details regarding EA's Kesmai acquisition were not disclosed.