Activision's Monster Plan

• Email
• Share
• Print

It was bound to happen. Live Nation's (NYSE: LYV) Monster Jam series of traveling monster-truck shows will now be coming to a video game console near you. Promoter Live Nation is teaming up with Activision (Nasdaq: ATVI) to release the first Monster Jam game later this year. If it's as big a crowd-pleaser as Grave Digger going over mangled cars, more titles will come.

If names like Grave Digger, Maximum Destruction, and El Toro Loco are household names for you, you've probably been to a Monster Jam event. Live Nation takes two dozen signature monster trucks on the road, performing 250 shows a year in stadiums and arenas.

The event draws 4 million patrons annually. The brand is bigger than that, though. I have never been to a Monster Jam, but I'm familiar with the truck names just from watching the commercials when the event drives into town.

This may not do for Activision what World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE: WWE) did for THQ (Nasdaq: THQI), but the partnership seems to have all the right ingredients in place. You have gargantuan trucks with branded names and colorful personalities. It's as close to the WWE as you can get in terms of a great property that is ripe for video game exploitation.

Naturally, all bets are off if the first game itself is rubbish, but this is Activision. The same company that has given us the Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Spider-Man series of games is unlikely to miss this lay-up.

Activision is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. To find out all the reasons why, take a free 30-day trial of the newsletter service today.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is old enough to remember playing on an Atari 2600 before it became a relic. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.