The relationship between EA and Tiburon has existed since the company's beginnings. While Tiburon developed programs for large gaming companies, the company had some strong ties to EA because of the work done on the Madden series by Schappert, Anderson, and Chiang, who had done business with EA when they were working at Visual Concepts. EA was already a minority investor in the privately held company Tiburon and owned about 19.9 percent of Tiburon since April 1996. Later on, EA would soon purchase a minority equity interest of Tiburon on May 7, 1996. Included in this purchase, Tiburon would become an exclusive developer for Electronic Arts for entertainment software on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and other video-game systems. In 1996 Tiburon would form a contract with EA to help develop a new college football game (which became NCAA Football 98, released in 1997). With this investment made, the company would move from its 4,000-square-foot office in Longwood to an 8,600-square-foot site in Maitland Center. Acquisition by EA (1998–present) The EA/Tiburon partnership flourished as Tiburon continued to design top-selling interactive game software for EA and led to the acquisition of Tiburon by EA on April 2, 1998. Since the purchase, Tiburon Entertainment was re-branded to EA Tiburon and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Electronic Arts. Along with this, the studio went on to oversee the Madden franchise and still continues to do so to this day. In 2005, EA acquired the video game developer Hypnotix and folded its operations into Tiburon. EA had also constructed a new 25,000 square foot state-of-the-art creative center that would house the designers, programmers, and artists of Tiburon Entertainment. EA Tiburon was a division of EA Sports, but with some recent reorganization of the company, there have been some changes and now is its own independent subsidiary. Currently, EA Tiburon is still considered one of the largest video game studios in Florida and is employing over 500 people. Over the past few years, there have been other developing teams that have been incorporated into EA Tiburon such as Hypnotix after EA acquired some smaller video game development companies. EA Tiburon's Maitland headquarters continues to have renovations and expansions done to the building with the intent to allow employees to move more easily between workspaces and foster more collaboration. Some other additions include an updated infrastructure and video-game themed art along the walls of each floor.