Founder of Electronic Arts Joins Web3 Gaming Startup GFAL

Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, is joining Web3 startup Games for a Living (GFAL) as co-founder and chief of strategy, per Reuters.

❗ Why It Matters

Electronic Arts is as big and recognizable a name as any in the gaming industry, so a pioneer of a company of that ilk choosing Web3 gaming as his next venture speaks positively of his outlook on the space.

🔙 Back It Up

Trip Hawkins was an early employee at Apple, where he was the Director of Product Marketing. In early 1982, he met with Sequoia Capital's Don Valentine ("the grandfather of Silicon Valley venture capital") and subsequently decided to incorporate and establish Electronic Arts with his own personal investment. Electronic Arts (NasdaqGS: EA) would turn out to be a behemoth in the gaming industry, best known for franchises like The Sims, Madden NFL, and FIFA.

Hawkins stepped down as CEO in 1991 but remained chairman of the board until he resigned in 1994. He left EA to found 3DO, a video game console with a lower royalty structure than the two primary players at the time, Nintendo and Sega. He felt the larger royalties drawn by those two Japanese companies didn't allow creators as much freedom, and the concept of 3DO strived to empower creators and consumers rather than the electronics companies.

Fast forward to the present day, and Hawkins has resurfaced at Games for a Living, which was founded in 2021 and develops and publishes titles compatible with blockchain technology.

🔜 What’s Next?

GFAL's first game, Elemental Raiders, was released as a free-to-play version on Steam on January 16th, without the implementation of tokenomics.

The company will be releasing a full PC version in March, as well as its $GFAL token (on the BNB Chain).

🎤 Founder Feedback

🧠 Learn More

• Games For a Living official website
• Games For a Living whitepaper
• Elemental Raiders by Games for a Living
• Games For a Living Twitter