VIDEO GAME BEHEMOTH Activision has brought UK-based developer FreestyleGames into its stable, for a wad of moolah of undisclosed proportions.

The acquisition will see FreestyleGames become a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Publishing and is aimed at expanding the company's slice of the music-based game market.

Activision is best known in this genre for the highly successful Guitar Hero franchise, of which it has over 22 million units across the various titles and consoles.

FreestyleGames is working on some new localised downloadable content for the Guitar Hero, as well as some other yet-to-be-announced intellectual property in the music genre.

"An important part of our European growth strategy is to work with local developers and provide music content that resonates with the market," explained said Mike Griffith, president and CEO of Activision Publishing.

"Our goal has always been to deliver the most compelling entertainment experiences, and with the infrastructure, support and financial resources of Activision Publishing, we will be able to set our goals even higher than they are today."

With dollar signs spinning in his eyeballs, Jamie Jackson of FreeStyleGames said that "this is an exciting time for our company and great recognition of our success to date."

The next title in the series, Guitar Hero: World Tour is due out in November and will add drums and singing to the game, similar to rival game Rock Band. µ