Paramount expands its videogame business

Paramount Pictures has expanded its interactive department team and plans to more directly oversee development of a slate of games that it will partially or completely finance.

According to a Variety news story, Paramount is particularly interested in casual, handheld and mobile games rather than big-budget console titles.

"We are entering into deals now where we will be publishing games this year," said Sandi Isaacs, Paramount's senior VP of interactive and mobile.

"There's going to be a slate where in some cases we're publishing, in some cases we're co-publishing, or in others we're funding development and another publisher buys it.

"It's important for us to have a flexible model."

The company has chosen Matt Candler - a veteran of Activision and Grind Games - as its VP of interactive development to handle relations with developers. Former Sega and Fox executive Luke Letizia is also joining Paramount as executive director of interactive licensing.

Issacs thinks that getting more involved in the videogames publishing business will help Paramount ensure quality as well as moving projects along much faster.

"This gives us a great advantage in the timely evaluation of what's in development and could become good games, as well as working with our talent from the early stages," he said.

Despite the new commitment to funding and publishing, Paramount will continue licensing its properties to other videogame publishers as it has done in the past.

Not only is MTV Games is a sibling company of Paramount, but Midway is owned by Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. There was no word whether or not the movie studio is planning a business relationship with either publisher.