Paramount Pictures Once Owned Sega And Considered Making The First Friday The 13th Video Game!

 The 1980's were a true intersection of technology, entertainment, and pop culture. Video games represented a big part of that crossroads and that fact is still very evident today as our readers still yearn for Jason Voorhess and Friday The 13th in video games. At one point in the early 1980's, Paramount Pictures, which owned the Sega video game company, planned to make a Friday The 13th game to capitalize on the burgeoning home video game market and the popularity of Mr. Voorhees.

First, we need to go back to how this was possible and that starts with Gulf and Western Industries. Most Friday The 13th fans will know the company as Gulf+Western and remember seeing that name displayed with the glorious Paramount Pictures opening logo whenever we started watching a Friday The 13th film. Gulf and Western acquired Paramount Pictures in 1966 when the studio was struggling and moved forward with film productions, rebranding itself as Paramount Communications in 1989. Eventually, controlling interest in Paramount Communications was bought by Viacom in 1994 and later sold to Skydance Pictures.

In 1969, Gulf and Western acquired Sega Enterprises (originally known as Service Games and originally rooted in coin-operated games and arcades). Sega operated as a Gulf and Western subsidiary, initially focused on arcades, but as the late 1970's brought the explosion of the home video game market, the Paramount Pictures corporate leader decided it was time to capitalize on the movement and use its film IP to invade the home video game market. In 1983, Paramount announced it would start work to create video games based on some of their most popular film properties for the Atari 2600. 

In a February 1983 issue of Billboard Magazine, it was reported that video game adaptations of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, Mission Impossible, Airplane, and Friday The 13th were in the works. It was a pretty exciting time for Paramount to reach an even broader audience with their film properties, but as fast as the excitement grew, so did the short-lived downfall of the video game industry that same year. The 1983 video game crash was theorized to be caused by market saturation, poor-quality licensed games, and a number of economic factors. 

Amid the crash and Gulf and Western's focus on core entertainment assets, they sold Sega’s U.S. assets (manufacturing and distribution rights) to Bally Manufacturing in 1984. Japanese assets (including trademarks and game library) went to a group of investors led by David Rosen (longtime Sega executive) and Hayao Nakayama.

And just like that, the Friday The 13th franchise's very first video game adaptation was as dead as a camp counselor. There is one rare artifact from that endeavor that shows Paramount was indeed serious about making the game and it is a promotional pin produced in 1983 (seen above). The pin recently sold on eBay and is what triggered our look into this rare piece of history from the franchise.

Domark would go on to publish one of the first Friday The 13th video games along with the LGN Nintendo game and the rest, as they say, is history!

Original Billboard Magazine from February 26, 1983 announcing a new Friday The 13th game was in the works.