When Electronic Arts decided that they needed a “global quality assurance center,” they had a pretty easy task. Find a place where lots of people play video games. So what did they do? Well, they found a nice, big state university and they’re setting up shop.
Today, EA and Louisiana State University announced the gaming giant’s commitment to create more than 200 jobs with an annual payroll of around US$6 million for kids to test new EA Sports titles. While only 20 of those jobs will be full-time, the government of Louisiana is hoping that this facility is just the first of many. Stephen Moret, Louisiana economic development secretary commented:
That’s kind of the dream —thinking of them as the anchor tenant of a new research-based complex cultivating the digital media industry
See, the state has been courting video game and digital arts companies looking to make Baton Rouge a new center for the industry (look out, Silicon Valley). The first step was the introduction of a video game design degree program at Baton Rouge Community College. That was started with help from game developer Nerjyzed Entertainment.
Since then, the city has been able to bait a few other little-known gaming companies, but now comes the big fish in the form of EA. If they keep this up, I think that I could actually be convinced to move back there.
Read more at the Electronic Arts press release, found via The Baton Rouge Advocate and Kotaku
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