I imagine some mixture of. 1) They own a number of franchises that had lots of fanboys before EA got them. The fanboys cling to the hope that EA won't screw it

I imagine some mixture of. 1) They own a number of franchises that had lots of fanboys before EA got them. The fanboys cling to the hope that EA won't screw it up. 2) They own a lot of sports franchises and in some cases have the only games which are officially licensed by the sporting bodies. 3) There are lots of newer , younger and older casual gamers who have completely different expectations about what they want from a gaming experience. 4) They advertise their games a lot , all over the place.