THE BUZZ: EA has just opened a brand new, 50,000 square foot Worldwide Customer Experience office in Austin,Texas.

The move is a result of an agreement with Governor Rick Perry stating that EA would bring an additional 300 jobs to Austin, from software engineers, game designers and artists to Customer Experience and IT. “It’s really about building out our competency in supporting the tens of millions of consumers that interact with us everyday. This is an important part of our strategy as we continue to build out games that are more service oriented now and in the future,” said EA COO Peter Moore about expanding in Austin. “So we’re looking to address customer needs, issues they may have with a game, issues they may have in commercially transacting with us, issues they may have in understanding what they need to do to progress in a game (we get a lot of calls asking to be helped through a section of a game) – so all of that is done here via telephone, email and in a lot of instances now through in-game chat. So this is the global headquarters and it’s where we manage all of our customer service centers around the world.”

“When we put roots down there, the government of B.C. welcomed us and supported us and we became a tentpole for bringing in digital talent – not only for us but for companies sprouting up alongside us, and I expect to continue to see that here in Austin. I’m very excited about our growth in Austin,” he added.

EGM’s TAKE: This is fantastic for the local economy with plenty of new jobs being created.