Glu Mobile Says Hands-Off; Gains ‘Guitar Hero’ Franchise As Part Of Activision Deal

Glu Mobile

Glu Mobile (NSDQ: GLUU) is releasing four new titles through its partnership with Activision (NSDQ: ATVI) Publishing this year, including such high-profile brands as ‘Guitar Hero,’ which formerly was being developed by Hands-On Mobile.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based company, which has struggled to keep up as mobile gaming has shifted from mid-range handsets to phones, like the iPhone, said today that it will be publishing such titles as “Crash Mutant Island” in the third quarter and “Blur,” “Guitar Hero 5″ and “Tony Hawk: RIDE” in the fourth quarter. While Glu will not have permission to produce any of those games for the iPhone, it will publish games for Android, Blackberry, BREW, J2ME and Windows Mobile. Update: Glu just added “Modern Warfare 2″ to the list of titles it will be publishing for Activision.

Glu’s CEO Greg Ballard told mocoNews that not only is Glu getting the ‘Guitar Hero’ franchise, which was formerly being developed by Hands-On, its in the popular gaming niche that incorporates music. Ballard: “The one thing I will say, and I say it proudly, is that this is the grandfather of the genre — the leader of the genre. It’s exciting to see the category start to heat up, but it’s nice to know you have the category leader.” Ballard would not elaborate on what artists they might be working for in advance of the release, other than to say they are working on it daily.

Last week, Glu’s stock, which had been trading near $1 for some time, unexpectantly starting climbing, jumping nearly 84 percent. Analysts began to speculate that something was in the works. Ballard declined to comment on the uptick yesterday, other than to say: “I can’t speculates as to what caused the run up, other than it wouldn

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