Paramount gets into the game

Big news exclusively in today's Daily Variety: Paramount is getting into videogame publishing.

There have been vague rumors about this in the past and wild speculation when an executive said the studio is "very excited" about the space. But we've got confirmed what the interest is and how they're implementing it.

In short, Paramount is going to start publishing and co-publishing games based on its movie properties. It will still do licenses, but it's going to start spending some of its own money and getting more involved in production. I don't know yet what the games will be, but there's a slate in the works and the first few will come out later this year. My sense is that Paramount is leaning more towards casual, mobile, or handheld games given the lower risk, but they say they're looking at everything.

That makes it only the second film studio, along with Warner Bros., to be in the game publishing business. However I know that that several others are considering it, both because they see how much faster the videogame business is growing than film and TV and because they want to try and ensure that there won't be crappy games based on their films. Of course Disney and Sony aren't looking at it though, since they both have sister companies in the videogame biz.

Want all the details on Paramount's entry into the videogame biz? Just click here.