Developer Incentives Already Paying Off for Louisiana

A new Electronic Arts videogame testing facility located on the Louisiana State University campus has the state of Florida worried about a full-court press to lure developers to the Bayou State.

While EA was not looking to open a new testing center, reports the Orlando Sentinel, incentives signed into law earlier this year by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) were “too good to pass up.”  The facility at LSU should eventually grow to comprise 200 part-time student workers and 20 full-timers, some of who moved over from Maitland, Florida-based EA Tiburon.

Craig Hagen, EA's director of government affairs for North America, offered:

Florida is at risk of not being competitive with other states relative to these incentives programs. I understand the fiscal pressure that Florida faces, and it is a difficult thing, but they need to realize the economic incentives are what should grow the economy and turn the pressure down."

The article also notes that in order to prepare its students for jobs with developers, LSU is now offering a digital-media-based curriculum.