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by Adam Rosenberg
We've known for some time that MTV and Jerry Bruckheimer have been ambling down the road together towards a video games-related partnership. MTV has seen a world of success with their "Rock Band" rhythm game/platform and mega-producer Bruckheimer... well... he's good at making explosions look awesome. It's a natural pairing then; MTV gets to expand their games lineup while Bruck inserts himself into a fast-growing entertainment industry with a well-established partner to back him.
Late last night, Variety reported that there's finally been some serious movement with regards to this partnership. The newly-minted Jerry Bruckheimer Games Studio will be run by the powerhouse gaming tag team of Jim Veevaert and Jay Cohen. The Variety piece also reveals that Cohen and Veevaert will handle development and production, respectively.
Veevaert served as executive producer on Microsoft's chartbusting "Halo 3" and in general served as a liaison between Microsoft and "Halo" developer Bungie Studios during the popular trilogy's life cycle. Veevaert also dealt with Epic Games and Rare on Microsoft's behalf, on "Gears of War" and "Viva Piñata" respectively.
Cohen comes to Jerry Bruckheimer Games Studio by way of French publisher Ubisoft. He worked there for more than a decade as senior VP of publishing, and played a key role in bringing many of Ubi's most successful properties to market: the increasingly multi-faceted "Tom Clancy" series, "Assassin's Creed," "Rayman," and "Prince of Persia" (which has a Bruckheimer-produced film adaptation in the works), to name just a few.
Bruckheimer referred to his new hires as "two of the most knowledgeable, brightest and creative talents in [the video game] industry." From the sound of things, the producer is after original IPs rather than adaptations and spin-offs of his films. The article goes on to reveal that Veevaert and Cohen will make the final call on which games get made, but there are no mentions of what their first effort might be. Bruckheimer definitely knows how to deliver visual spectacle for filmgoing audiences; only time will tell if that expertise will aid him in the video game industry.