Activision has acquired game developer Vicarious Visions, the creative studio behind the third-party Nintendo DS title, Spider-Man 2. Vicarious Visions’ proven proprietary Alchemy middleware technology and tools will be combined with Activision’s next-generation tools and libraries to further enhance the company’s overall development efforts.

The publisher says the acquisition underscores its strategy to continue building its technical infrastructure in order to take full advantage of the high-growth potential of the next-generation hardware platforms by acquiring technical and design talent with a history of high-quality product creation, while over time enhancing the company’s financial operating model.

Vicarious Visions has developed five games that have sold more than one million-units each and is currently co-developing the highly anticipated Doom 3 for the Xbox with Id Software, as well as Spider-Man 2, which will be a launch title for the PlayStation Portable. Vicarious Visions developed popular titles for the Game Boy Advance such as Shrek 2, Shark Tale, as well as Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 and Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation game console.

Kathy Vrabeck, President of Activision Publishing, said, “Vicarious Visions’ talented development team and proprietary technology combined with our internal systems and capabilities will play a key role in Activision’s continued leadership on the next-generation platforms. Vicarious Visions has a track record of success and we are very excited to partner with them.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Vicarious Visions’ hundred-man studio, headquartered in New York, has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. As part of the transaction, Vicarious Visions’ management team and key employees have signed long-term employment contracts with Activision.

“We have shared a strong relationship with Activision over the past five years on platforms ranging from Game Boy Color to most recently the Nintendo DS, Xbox and Sony PSP,” said Karthik Bala, CEO of Vicarious Visions. “Joining the Activision family seemed like the logical next step and we look forward to continuing to build great games and a great company together.”

Guha Bala, President of Vicarious Visions adds, “We’ve always admired Activision’s ability to expand and evolve with the ever changing video game industry. Their franchises include some of our favourites, and their strong marketing and development capability makes them a great partner for our studio.”