Just a few hours ago I got on the phone with Jeff Weiner, CEO of Ludlum Entertainment, to talk about the Robert Ludlum estate's plans for its videogame license now that the rights have reverted back following the Activision - Vivendi Games merger. (The Ludlum estate signed a 10 year licensing deal with Vivendi Games back in 2005)

As many people, including me, predicted, Bobby Kotick and his team decided to not keep making Bourne games, most likely because they're too similar to the James Bond games it already has in development. Weiner told me it was a very simple process: "They decided internally after the merger what they wanted to continue publishing and what they didn't. The decision was made. They had the ability to get out of the contract if they wanted to."

But he said his company is "certainly going to stay in the interactive business." Vivendi's first Ludlum game, "The Bourne Conspiracy," got generally good reviews when it was released last month (including from me), though it seems like sales weren't too big out of the game (it didn't make NPD's top 20 for June). Weiner did grant that all the attention taken by the pending merger "certainly impacted the marketing support" that the game got.

So what happens now? Weiner says his company is definitely looking to do a new long-term deal to make more Bourne games. "Videogames are capital intensive and time intensive to develop," he noted. "We don't want to do one-offs."

The question now is whether Ludlum  Entertainment will make a deal with a new publisher or raise money to finance them itself. "We have been approached by financing sources and publishing partners," he told me.

Just as movie studios like Paramount and Universal and Warner are increasingly publishing their own games rather than licensing them out, independent IP owners like Ludlum are now thinking the same thing.

Anyone who publishes future "Bourne" games won't necessarily have to start from scratch. Vivendi-owned developer Radical Entertainment (which Activision Blizzard is keeping, but downsizing) was already developing a new Ludlum-based game called "Treadstone." It's a multi-player online game set in the world of the spy agency that trained Bourne. While production has stopped, a new publisher could possibly revive it.

[Interested in the status of Vivendi's "Ghostbusters" game? Click here. Interested in the status of "Brutal Legend?" Click here.]