REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — EA Games issued a public announcement today posthumously wishing their founder Erwin Arthur Games a happy 200th birthday.
“We’d like to wish a happy 200th birthday to the dearly beloved Erwin A. Games,” read a statement posted to the software giant’s social media pages this morning. “He was many things during his time: entrepreneur, businessman, failed huckster. But most importantly, he’s the reason we’re here and the reason we have committed to a business strategy of absolute dastardliness. When consumers and journalists ask how and why we’ve remained so consistently defiant of the public’s wishes, they’ve failed to realize it’s merely a dedication to the flawed vision of our drunken founder. Happy birthday, Erwin. We hope they’re keeping the Hamm’s cold up there. Or down there. Probably down there.
“While many focus on the corporation your humble company blossomed into and its subsequent negative reputation due to years of vile and incompetent corporate decision making, we here at EA continue to carry on the proud tradition of just fucking things up all the time and having enough money to land comfortably.
“Did Erwin falter when he was expelled from school for gating off the water fountain and selling access to it? No.
“Did he pack it in when his first ever business, the infamous ‘Pay me some money and I’ll punch you in the chest’ booth nearly bankrupted him? Of course not.
“He took these failures and he channeled them into a dummy corporation used to camouflage various shady transactions for nearly two full centuries before getting into the computer software business with games like One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird, even though he had died in the qualifying rounds of an underground Russian Roulette tournament well before then. Nevertheless, his passion and vision resonate every day. I think he’d really appreciate just how infuriating we’ve done things around here in his absence.
“So once again, happy birthday, Erwin, you crazy fucking asshole. It’s not the same without you.”
In addition to the released statement, EA Games also honored the 200th birthday of its founder by raising all prices of its games by two dollars today.
