Louisiana Wants to Create Integrated Studios

The Associated Press has a good story about Louisiana's attempt to integrate the movie, video game, and digital production industries in an attempt to grow the state's entertainment industry.

Clearly, this has already happened in places such as New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area, but there hasn't been many other major pushes when it comes to integrated media. However, if it's done well, setting up a closely tied community of specialists would give studios looking to make cross-platform products something to think about when they start development.

An interesting side note is that the development of this product might very well help transform some of the universities, since highly skilled workers will be hard to come by unless they are home grown.

From the story:

But game companies will only come if Louisiana can produce skilled programmers and designers for them to employ to capture the tax credits. And such training must come from the universities, said Stephen Beck, director of the LSU Laboratory for Creative Technologies.