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  A combination of lucrative tax incentives, talented workforce, strong educational foundation and teamwork among state, city and University partners convinced Electronic Arts Inc. in Fall 2008 to do business in Baton Rouge.

Electronic Arts Inc., or EA, is the world’s leading independent video game developer and publisher. EA’s games include the Madden NFL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NCAA Football series, among other titles. 

EA decided to build its North American quality assurance and testing center in LSU’s South Campus complex. This center will create 20 full-time jobs and more than 200 part-time jobs, many of which will be occupied by LSU students, with an annual payroll of $5.7 million throughout the next two years.

At the test center, workers will play EA’s upcoming sports titles to test them before they hit the market. Since quality control is a popular track to future jobs in the video game industry, EA and LSU officials hope this endeavor will provide a path to keep more trained, talented graduates in state.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced EA’s plans to build in Louisiana during an Aug. 20 press conference with several state, city and University dignitaries, including Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret, LSU Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development Brooks Keel and East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Kip Holden.

“This is a big step forward in establishing Louisiana as the place to do digital media and entertainment,” Gov. Jindal said.

Gov. Jindal noted a combination of several factors convinced EA to locate its testing center in Baton Rouge, notably the state’s tax incentive package for entertainment companies, strong partnerships among key agencies and future education and training opportunities through LSU, particularly the AVATAR initiative.

AVATAR: Arts, Visualization, Advanced Technologies and Research is a new multidisciplinary hiring initiative that CCT and LSU School of Music Professor Stephen David Beck is leading for the campus. AVATAR will bring in as many as twelve new faculty and will create new curricula in digital media to train LSU students for jobs in this industry.

Vice Chancellor Keel said the AVATAR initiative was instrumental in bringing EA’s testing center to Louisiana, and feels a combination of the educational and business efforts between the two will create future opportunities for faculty recruitment, staff recruitment and workforce development at LSU.

“The idea is to get students trained in a new and exciting field so they will stay in Louisiana,” Keel said.

Secretary Moret particularly credits Baton Rouge Area Digital Industries Consortium Executive Director Stacey Simmons for the EA facility. Through the consortium, Simmons promotes Louisiana as an ideal place for economic development in this growing industry to companies worldwide.  

“We’re not stopping here,” Moret said. “We’re going to be leveraging this victory to develop other ones.”   

EA will begin moving into the South Campus complex and posting jobs in September 2008. For information on job opportunities with the EA center in Baton Rouge, please visit www.jobs.ea.com.

For more information on the education and job opportunities available through the AVATAR initiative, please visit www.avatar.lsu.edu.

Publish Date: 
08-22-2008