Activision has added Fantastic Four and Iron Man to its roster of Marvel properties, which already includes X-Men, Spider-Man and Blade.  Activision holds international rights to develop and publish interactive games for console machines and PCs based on these properties.  The two new licenses are being granted to take advantage of the attention to the characters that is expected from theatrical films based on both to be released in 2003/2004. 

 

Activision currently has five Spider-Man, five X-Men and one Blade game in release in a variety of formats.  In addition to the core product streams, it plans a movie tie-in title for Spider-man, featuring settings based on those in the movie.  It will be released in May, 2002 at the same time as the movie.  Presumably similar treatment can be given to FF and Iron Man when those movies are released. 

 

With an aggressive (eight new Marvel titles in 2001) and expanding schedule of releases, Activision is becoming a major promulgator of the Marvel mythos.  Not only does that help create more consumers that may buy Marvel products in other formats (like comics and toys), videogame licensing revenues were a major reason for Marvel's great $11 million in licensing revenue in Q2 of this year (see 'Marvel Cash Flow Positive in Q2').