Activision's Beenox to create more original titles

Activision's Beenox studio is to ramp up the production of original content for its publisher and owner following the success of Bee Movie Game — the first title it has created from scratch.

The studio has previously been responsible for porting a majority of Activision franchises such as Spider-Man, Shrek and X-Men to multiple formats, but now intends to develop original content alongside the successful porting team.

"We have two types of teams — the conversion team, with the ability to convert titles and make good ports — and at the same time we have an original team developing original titles, and we're talking about having multiple projects running at the same time," Thomas Wilson, creative director of Beenox told GamesIndustry.biz at GDC Lyon.

Bee Movie Game came together in 18 months, with the studio developing the game using all in-house technology rather than relying on any external middleware.

As well as efficient production techniques, the team were also allowed a level of creative freedom that Wilson believes proved to Activision the studio can be more than just a porting factory.

"We had a lot of creative room and so we expect that creative room to be as big if not bigger on our next projects," stated Wilson.

"Now that we've proven what we can do we expect Activision to understand where we want to go with a title and let us have fun with it."

However, Beenox doesn't intend to slow down the porting side of the business, as it's currently working on the Wii version of Activision's first James Bond game, expected to be released alongside the new movie later this year.

"Right now we're working on a James Bond Wii title in conjunction with Treyarch and we're rolling with it because we're really good at what we're doing and Activision doesn't want to send their ports anywhere else," said Wilson, who's confident the studio can put its own stamp on the title despite not working on the original content.

"One thing we want to make sure of if we're making the Wii version is that we absolutely want the controls to be top notch. Although we don't fully control the original development content because it's in collaboration with Treyarch, that's one thing that we can do — make sure we put out a strong Wii title.

"We're almost ahead of the title that is being developed with Treyarch at the moment, so we're saying that we're ready and waiting for stuff. That's the Beenox way of doing things, we don't want to waste time, we want to be productive."

As well as Bee Movie Game, Activision is working on a number of Dreamworks licenses, including Kung Fu Panda, in development at Treyarch and expected to be released alongside the movie starring Jack Black and Jackie Chan in 2008, How to Train your Dragon and Rex Havoc, due in 2009.

Despite the strong business partnership, Beenox is determined to help strengthen and improve the development process with future licensed projects.

"The thing we absolutely know we need to improve on for our next title is the relationship of us and the licensor," admitted Wilson.

"It's been a pain in the development process of the Bee Movie game and although we succeeded, we wished we could achieve a higher level of communication so things could be shared more frequently. That's something we know we have to improve on any further titles," he added.