EA Sports Austin could make new IP

Earlier today, Texas Governor Rick Perry and representatives from Electronic Arts jointly announced the publisher's plans to expand its footprint in the Lone Star State with 300 new jobs, some of which will be at a new EA Sports studio being established in Austin. After word of the push broke, EA Games president Frank Gibeau and EA Sports COO Daryl Holt spoke with GameSpot to provide more detail on the publisher's plans and discuss the importance of incentives when publishers choose where to do their business.

GameSpot: So what can you tell us about where those 300 jobs are coming from?

Frank Gibeau: They're across all our different teams here: BioWare with our Star Wars products, EA Sports, as well as other functions like IT and finance. So it's not 300 jobs on a game idea; it'll be spread across.

Daryl Holt: We'll be starting to build that team in Austin. We are confirming that today. We'll probably start with a team of roughly 30 to 35 to get that thing kicked off. We hope that will grow as our future business grows, but that's going to take some time to get that off the ground and moving. But it's included in that overall 300 jobs.

GS: Will that be known just as EA Sports Austin?

DH: I don't know. Probably. I mean, there are always cultures that develop within studio locations. If that group wants to name itself a little bit, they can, but we're all one EA Sports.

GS: What will the studio be working on first?

DH: We haven't determined that yet. We do want it to start with HD platform development to make sure we've got the skills necessary to deal with things like an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 development, but really, the sky's the limit. We can look at anything in our current title plan, pieces of it. I don't think we're going to move core franchises right now to start with, if ever. We've got new IP in development as well. There are lots of different opportunities, and the goal for us is to circle the wagons and figure out what we want to build here while we're forming that team, but we haven't made any declaration yet on what that's to be.

GS: So it's initially going to be a support studio, and it's undetermined whether or not they'll have their own games or franchises down the road?

DH: We want to be building games and franchises here. That's the goal. We don't want just extra resources sitting by. This will be a development location for sports. We just haven't determined what the right franchise is, whether that's something existing or something new. The good news is Texas is full of knowledgeable sports fans, people that really respond to that. We're expecting a lot of interest and a lot of people with fresh ideas for things we are building and things we will be building.

GS: Do you view this as an addition of resources to EA, or a transference moving jobs from other places to Austin?

FG: These are incremental jobs. They're not jobs that have a specific offset somewhere else inside the company. From our perspective, our company's in growth mode right now, and this is about capturing the opportunity in Austin and building out against the Star Wars, the Command & Conquers, the EA Sports products that are down here.

GS: How important are local incentives, tax breaks, and the like when you decide where you're going to expand?

FG: Very important. Materially important to the decision. If you look at all the different places in the world where you can go, the environments like Austin--having such a strong university culture, a great business environment as reflected in the tax breaks--those things definitely are important in the decision when you think, "Do we expand this location? Do we create a new location?" We have a lot of different opportunities throughout the United States and internationally for folks that want us to build out areas or come to new areas. Austin put together a great package for us to look at their environment.

GS: Is it a deal-breaker for you? Would EA consider opening studios in regions without those opportunities?

FG: It's really an opportunity cost. If I can do something at the same level of quality for 20 percent cheaper someplace else, I'm always going to go to the 20 percent cheaper option, assuming it's the same quality output. If we're competing against a different area for a new start or incremental area, it certainly makes the decision easier to go with the incentive. If you have an existing team with an existing culture, you don't necessarily…you're not going to uproot Edmonton or another site that we have in Vancouver. But in general, looking for those types of incentives is important. What we do for the local economy is we bring highly educated individuals and families that stay in the community year-round, unlike a film, who comes in for a certain number of months and then leaves. These folks really put down roots and stay. They're at the top end of the tax bracket, and they're job creators in a lot of ways. So for local governments, these are exactly the type of folks they want to have in their region.