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Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher. It was founded on October 1, 1979[3] and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system published from July 1980 for the US market and from August 1981 for the international market (UK).[4] Activision is now one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world and was also the top publisher for 2007 in the United States.[5] On January 18, 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group.[6]
Its current CEO is Robert A. Kotick, who was the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, Inc. since February 1991 until Activision and Vivendi Games merged on July 9, 2008 to create the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard.[7][8] On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from owner Vivendi, valuing US$2.34 billion. As a result, Activision Blizzard became an independent company.[9]
Before Activision, third-party developers did not exist. Software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed.[10] For example, Atari was the only publisher of games for the Atari 2600. This was particularly galling to the developers of the games, as they received no financial rewards for games that sold well, and did not receive credit for their games.[11]
Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead met with Atari CEO Ray Kassar in May 1979 to demand that the company treat developers as record labels treated musicians, with royalties and their names on game boxes. Kaplan, who called the others "the best designers for the [2600] in the world", recalled that Kassar called the four men "towel designers" and that "anyone can do a cartridge." Crane, Miller, and Whitehead left Atari and founded Activision in October 1979[12] with former music industry executive Jim Levy and venture capitalist Richard Muchmore; Kaplan soon joined the company. The name "Activision" was possibly decided upon so that the company would appear before Atari in the phone book, although David Crane has said that the name was based on an idea by Jim Levy to combine 'active' and 'television'. The original name proposed for the company was VSync, Inc.[13]
Unlike Atari, the company credited and promoted game creators along with the games themselves. The steps taken for this included devoting a page to the developer in their instruction manuals[14][15][16] and challenging players to send in a high score (usually as a photograph, but sometimes as a letter) in order to receive an embroidered patch.[17][18][19][20] These approaches helped the newly formed company attract experienced talent. Crane, Kaplan, Levy, Miller, and Whitehead received the Game Developers Choice "First Penguin" award in 2003, in recognition of this step.
The departure of the four programmers, whose titles made up more than half of Atari's cartridge sales at the time,[13] caused legal action between the two companies that were not settled until 1982. As the market for game consoles started to decline, Activision branched out, producing game titles for home computers and acquiring smaller publishers.
In 1982, Activision released Pitfall!, a best selling title on the Atari 2600. Pitfall! was a huge success for the company and the developers. Due to this success, many clones of the game were introduced, including stand-up arcade games. On June 13, 1986, Activision purchased struggling text adventure pioneer Infocom. Jim Levy was a big fan of Infocom's titles and wanted the company to remain solvent. About six months after the "InfoWedding", Bruce Davis took over as CEO of Activision. Davis was against the merger from the start and was heavy-handed in its management. Eventually in 1989, after several years of losses, Activision closed down the Infocom studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts, extending to only 11 of the 26 employees an offer to relocate to Activision's headquarters in Silicon Valley. Five of them accepted this offer.[21]
In 1988, Activision began involvement in other types of software besides video games, such as business applications. As a result, Activision changed its corporate name to Mediagenic to have a name that globally represented all its activities. Under the Mediagenic holding company, Activision continued to publish video games for various platforms notably the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, the Atari 7800, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and Amiga.
Following a multi-million judgment on damages in a PCs and video game consoles, and resumed making strategic acquisitions. After emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic officially changed its entity name back to Activision in December 1992 and became a Delaware Corporation (it was previously a California Corporation). At that point, Activision moved its headquarters from Mountain View in the Silicon Valley to Santa Monica in Southern California. Activision chose from then on to concentrate solely on video gaming.
In 1991, Activision packaged 20 of Infocom's past games into a CD-ROM collection called The Lost Treasures of Infocom, without the feelies Infocom was famous for. The success of this compilation led to the 1992 release of 11 more Infocom titles in The Lost Treasures of Infocom II.
Activision published the first-person perspective MechWarrior in 1989, based on FASA's pen-and-pencil game BattleTech. Activision released the sequel, MechWarrior 2, in 1995 after two years of delays and internal struggles. Because of these delays, FASA decided against renewing their licensing deal with Activision. To counter, Activision released several more games bearing the MechWarrior 2 name, which did not violate their licensing agreement. These included NetMech, MechWarrior 2: Ghost Bears Legacy, and MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. The entire MechWarrior 2 game series accounted for more than US$70 million in sales.[22]
Activision procured the license to another pen-and-paper-based war-game, Heavy Gear, in 1997. It was well received by critics, with an 81.46% average rating on gamerankings.com and being considered the best game of the genre at the time by GameSpot. The Mechwarrior 2 engine was also used in other Activision games, including 1997's Interstate '76 and finally 1998's Battlezone.[23]
In December 2007, it was announced that Activision would merge with Vivendi Games, which owned fellow games developer and publisher Blizzard, and the merger would close in July 2008. The new company was called Activision Blizzard and is headed by Activision's former CEO, Robert Kotick. Vivendi is the biggest shareholder in the new group.[30] The new company is estimated to be worth US$18.9 billion, ahead of Electronic Arts, which is valued at US$14.1 billion.[31]
Sledgehammer Games was founded on November 17, 2009 by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey,[32] who left Electronic Arts subsidiary, Visceral Games.[33][34][35]
The Sledgehammer Games micro site went live on December 8, 2009 with information on the studio development team, location, and current job openings. Speculation on the studio's next game has been offered by industry sites, Kotaku and Gamasutra.[36] The studio's first game was originally planned to be a first-person shooter in the Call of Duty series, with rumors of MMO aspects, as revealed on their website[37] on June 19, 2010. However, after the resignation of many Infinity Ward employees, Sledgehammer Games was brought in to help with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.[38]
On February 9, 2011, Activision announced that it was ending its once profitable Guitar Hero franchise, in the process doing a layoff of approximately 500 people. At the same time it announced that it was discontinuing development of True Crime: Hong Kong, and that it was refocusing its efforts into a new online service named Call of Duty: Elite for its IP Call of Duty. At the same meeting these announcements were made, Activision reported net losses of $233 million for fourth quarter 2010.[39]
Activision has recently (mid-2011) restarted its in-house development team, releasing Generator Rex: Agent of Providence in October 2011 for PlayStation 3, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, Wii, and Xbox 360.[40] The game was roundly ignored by critics, with no review scores available on Metacritic as of February 2012.[41]
Activision, Wii, PlayStation 3, World War II, Nokia
Infocom, Conference on Computer Communications
Activision, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, Santa Monica, California, Vivendi Games
Activision, Rock music, Wii, Nintendo DS, Vicarious Visions
Los Angeles County, California, California, Los Angeles, Santa Monica College, San Fernando Valley
Activision, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Thq, Sega