'M3GAN' and 'Get Out' producer Blumhouse is moving into horror games

Horror movie powerhouse Blumhouse is getting into video games. The company behind hits like M3GAN, Get Out, The Purge and Insidious is opening a production and publishing division that will work on original horror games for PC, consoles and mobile.

“We’re in the scary story business. We do films, we do TV and there is this massive, growing segment in media and entertainment called gaming,” Blumhouse president Abhijay Prakash told Bloomberg. “The space is hundreds of billions of dollars; we’re in a great position to try and access it.”

As with the film side of the production company, Blumhouse Games will keep the budgets modest. It plans to release games that cost under $10 million to make. Rather than adapting its own movies (something Blumhouse has tried in the past) into games, the company will look for projects that are in development and offer studios financial support, creative insight and the Blumhouse name to slap on their titles.

Veteran game producer Zach Wood — who was recently involved in Prey: Mooncrash and Redfall — will run the creative side of Blumhouse Games. Don Sechler, a former PlayStation executive who worked closely with indie studios, will oversee the operational and financial aspects.

It's hardly the first time that a movie studio has opened a gaming division. Disney used to have one, as did Lucasfilm (which now licenses its properties to external developers). Annapurna Interactive has perhaps set the template for Blumhouse Games to follow, though. The games division of Annapurna Pictures has an excellent track record as an indie publisher, having released the likes of What Remains of Edith Finch, Florence, Donut County, Outer Wilds, If Found..., Neon White, Stray and Sayonara Wild Hearts over the last six years.