20th Century Fox gets serious about games. Again.

While we’ve seen Warner Bros, Viacom and Disney all mount a Big Media stampede into games development in recent years, there has been one notable absence: NewsCorp-owned Fox.

The studio, rights owner for a raft of big TV brands and movies licences – including The Simpsons, Aliens vs Predator and Die Hard franchises plus many others – has so far dodged setting up its own games division. Instead it has licensed out its properties to other publishers.

But that might be about to change – or at least, it sounds like Fox wants to get a little bit more involved in games development.

Variety points out that the studio has hired Vivendi vet Andre Emerson – previously exec producer on the likes of the 50 Cent games and Wet – as a new VP of game production.

You’d be forgiven for thinking if any of this sounds familiar, however. Variety doesn’t point out that just year ago, to the day almost, Fox also appointed former THQ vet Gary Rosenfeld as new VP of new-media licensing to work and manage its game development staff and partners.

Prior to that, the studio had a Fox Interactive CD-ROM publishing division, which was eventually managed by Vivdeni.

At the moment, it’s not yet clear if Emerson’s appointment means Fox is looking to set up or buy its own internal studios to create new content – as Warner, Viacom and Disney all have.

Or if the firm, by appointing Emerson, just wants to get closer to the industry and better ensure that its properties aren’t mistreated by cash-hungry games publishers.