Bruckheimer Games hires industry veterans

By John Gaudiosi

RALIEGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Jerry Bruckheimer Games Inc. on Tuesday named a pair of videogame veterans to lead the company nearly 18 months after entering into a publishing agreement with MTV Games.

Jim Veevaert, formerly an executive producer at Microsoft, and Jay Cohen, previously senior vice president of publishing at Ubisoft, will lead Bruckheimer Games as president of production and president of development, respectively.

The pair will work together with Hollywood producer Bruckheimer, responsible for the "Pirates of The Caribbean" movies and the "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation" television shows, to build a new studio focused on original, story-driven videogame projects.

"I think Jim Veevaert and Jay Cohen are enormously talented," said Bruckheimer. "They've been very successful at developing the kind of games that I like a lot."

In addition to overseeing the launch of "Halo 3," which took in over $300 million in global sales its first week, Veevaert brought Epic Games and the 11 million unit-selling "Gears of War" franchise to Microsoft.

While at Ubisoft, Cohen orchestrated the launch of major game franchises including "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell," "Assassin's Creed," and "Prince of Persia."

As one of Hollywood's major producers, Bruckheimer brings his ties to film and TV into the gaming world.

For instance, Bruckheimer is producing the Walt Disney Pictures movie "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," which is based on Ubisoft's "Prince of Persia" video game.