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BR to gain EA video game test center




By GARY PERILLOUX
Advocate business writer
Published: Aug 20, 2008 - UPDATED: 9:49 a.m.

Print Email Save Share Del.icio.us Digg Facebook Reddit Electronic Arts Inc., one of the world’s leading video game companies with $4 billion in annual sales, will bring a global test center and 220 employees to LSU’s South Campus in Baton Rouge, Gov. Bobby Jindal and state economic development officials announced this morning.

About 200 of the jobs will be part time, employing LSU students and others in testing the roll-out of new EA Sports games.

The EA annual payroll initially will be about $6 million a year, the state is committing $800,000 to renovate facilities at the South Campus on GSRI Avenue, and EA will tap a 20 percent state tax credit available to digital media companies. EA could begin moving in by September.

Stephen Moret, Louisiana’s economic development secretary, described the recruitment of EA as a watershed moment for the state’s effort in recent years to establish the digital media industry in Louisiana.

“The project provides a good return on investment just based on the jobs,” Moret said, “but the real value is the additional benefits.”

Moret and Jindal, who have been courting EA for months, said they hope the global quality assurance center will lead to bigger projects, higher-paying jobs and possibly a video game development center by EA. For now, the games will be developed elsewhere and tested in Baton Rouge.

If the test center project succeeds in the first three years, Moret, said talks could proceed to establishing an entire research park of digital media companies in the LSU area.

“That’s kind of the dream —thinking of them as the anchor tenant of a new research-based complex cultivating the digital media industry,” Moret said.

Both the state economic development department, LED, and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber have been recruiting digital media companies because they offer higher-paying jobs and the potential for rapid expansion if Louisiana can form a base of qualified workers and complementary technology companies to support the industry. EA has agreed to partner with the state, LSU, Southern University, Baton Rouge Community College and others in developing that work force.

A study by the Baton Rouge chamber three years ago estimated the digital media industry generates $30 billion in sales annually across the globe, with about a quarter of that business in the United States.

Though a fledgling industry in Baton Rouge, there are some early examples of companies meeting with success: Yatec, which has developed online video games and is located at the Bon Carre Business Center in Baton Rouge; Neerjyzed, which has released a video game highlighting the football game experience at historically black universities; and Resurgent, a developing company that has ties with R.W. Day’s La Vie development that targets movie, digital media and commercial and retail development in a $1 billion project off O’Neal Lane.

Brooks Keel, LSU’s vice chancellor of research and development, said the announcement dovetails with LSU’s development of a multidisciplinary curriculum, called AVATAR, focused on growing the digital media industry.

“Our AVATAR initiative will recruit leaders from around the world to LSU to perform cutting-edge research in high-performance computing, video game development, interactive systems, visual effects and digital arts,” he said in a statement. “(The EA collaboration) will greatly enhance our ability to attract global leaders in digital media, including scientists, artists and engineers, to LSU.”