We’ve had a lot of stories in 2011 about game industry employees losing jobs and probably just as many about politicians railing against video games. Here’s one that pleasantly bucks both those trends.

EA has announced it will open a new games studio in Austin, Texas (USA), creating 300 jobs. Texas Gov. Rick Perry tweeted his enthusiastic response, citing EA’s well known it’s in the game catchphrase. To celebrate, EA created Perry as a player in NCAA Football 12. He boasts 99s in most of his stats and he’s a quarterback playing for his alma mater, the University of Texas. What, you didn’t expect Oklahoma, did you?

Call of Juarez: The Cartel was revealed to us about a week ago. We really don’t know anything about the game other than it has a western theme, and it takes place in modern day Los Angeles. The story in Call of Juarez: The Cartel is still widely unknown, and we don’t know who the main antagonist is. Even though we’re lacking extremely important information about this game, it’s not stopping the Brownsville, TX police chief from condemning Call of Juarez: The Cartel.

UTV Ignition Entertainment didn’t have a lovely 2010. The company closed down its studio in London and let go of more employees in Florida. Ignition isn’t out of the game as it has moved all of its publishing and development team to one location. Ignition Entertainment’s studios on the East and West Coast of the United States have joined UTV True Games in Austin, Texas.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a weird choice for a videogame keynote address, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry took the stage and talked today (9:15 a.m. PT, July 16, 2008) at E3 2008.

In his defense, Perry was pretty gushing about the videogame industry in a recent interview with the San Antonio Express-News, giving kind words to the money making power of the industry and expanding demographics of games.

According to the GamePolitics Live Blog (via Twitter so don’t blame me for the clicking), there were approximately 50 people who attended Perry’s keynote. That’s a pretty small crowd for a politician’s speech but likely because he’s not a name in the game industry and there are so many games to play at the Expo.

Even so, here’s bullet point style recap of Perry’s rather upbeat keynote…

There’s a thought that lurks deep inside all of us and keeps on asking, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could just sit around and play games all day and on top of that make a living out of it?” Well, actually there are some people that already have an answer to that question and more »

Women in Games International announced the details of their next conference “She Got Game.” The conference, taking place September 8, 2007, in Austin, TX, will focus on industry trends to diversify the talent pool of gaming and how it will impact the future of gaming.

One of the main keynote speakers for this conference is Dona C. Bailey, the creator of popular 80′s videogame Centipede and one of the few female game programmers of that time in the game industry. Bailey, currently a professor at the University of Arkansas, will be discussing how women can…