Activision Publishing, Inc.
Moby ID: 25
- Activision, Inc. (from 1992 to 2000-06-08)
- Mediagenic (from 1988 to 1992)
- Activision, Inc. (from 1979 to 1988)
- VSYNC, Inc. - Name of first incorporation. (from 1979 to 1979)
- Video Computer Arts, Inc. (from 1979 to 1979)
Overview edit · view history
Activision is an American video game publishing company. It was founded in 1979 by four programmers at Atari after they wanted more money and recognition for the games that they created for the Atari 2600. A sales sheet, intended to list what type of games sold best so the programmers would make more like those, showed that the four of them made over 60% of the company's sales at the time, over US$ 60 million. Atari president Ray Kassar dismissed their contract renegotiations and at that point they left.
David Crane, Alan Miller, Robert Whitehead, Larry Kaplan, and former record industry executive Jim Levy founded Activision and their games would have a biography and their signature at the end of the instruction booklets. This took off and Activision made millions in sales. It also marked the start of third-party publishing and development, as previously the owner of the hardware also made all the games for it.
The name of the company was chosen because they wanted a name that was higher up alphabetically than Atari in order to show that it was superior.
In 1984, sales began to fall as the video game crash happened (in late 1983), there was a split on the direction of the company on whether to keep going with video games or computer games. Over the next few year, key employees at Activision left and formed their own companies. Many of these new companies chose names alphabetically above Activision (such as Accolade, Acclaim, and Absolute Entertainment). With sales dropping and Jim Levy's style of crediting individuals in the games becoming less effective, he left the company in 1985.
In 1989, they started focusing on other computer software and changed their name to Mediagenic. In 1991, Mediagenic filed for bankruptcy, eventually they changed their name back to Activision and in 1993, they surfaced again. Since then, Activision has been turned into the second largest publishing company in the United States.
In the late 1990s and much of the 2000s, the company acted as the main distributor for LucasArts' games. It additionally operated the Activision Value Publishing subsidiary for budget-range games.
In 2000, Activision reorganized into a holding company organizational structure. The reorganization was made effective by a merger between Activision, Inc. (the surviving company) and ATVI Merger Sub, Inc. a subsidiary of Activision Holding Company, Inc., which in return was a subsidiary of Activision, Inc.
The merger resulted in all shares of Activision Holding Company, Inc. owned by Activision, Inc. to be canceled and retired, followed by Activision, Inc. changing its name to Activision Publishing Inc. and Activision Holding Company, Inc. to Activision, Inc. The newly Activision Publishing Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision, Inc. In the same year, Activision stopped developing games in their internal Los Angeles studio - the last productions Star Trek: Armada and Call to Power II were finished with the help of Mad Doc Software. From then on, development was handled by owned subsidiaries and licensed external parties.
In 2008, the company was acquired for US$ 18.8 billion by Vivendi, a media conglomerate. The new holding company was named Activision Blizzard, Inc.. Activision would gain the bulk of the IPs of the Sierra backlog, but would sell some franchises and studios off immediately.
Known subsidiaries
Names in italics used to be subsidiaries, but no longer are as they were closed or sold off.
- 7 Studios (acquired in 2009, closed in 2011)
- Activision O2 label (established in 2001 - closed in 2003)
- Activision Shanghai (founded in 2009)
- Activision Value Publishing (founded in 2000 - status unknown after 2016)
- Elsinore Studio (acquired in 1999 - merged into Activision Value Publishing in 2000)
- Expert Software (acquired in 1999 - merged into Activision Value Publishing in 2000)
- Head Games Publishing (acquired in 1998 - merged into Activision Value Publishing in 2000)
- Beachhead Studio (founded in 2011)
- Beenox (acquired in 2005)
- Beenox Score (acquired in 2005 - merged back into Beenox by 2008)
- Beenox Shift (acquired in 2005 - merged back into Beenox by 2008)
- Bizarre Creations (acquired in 2007 - closed in 2011)
- Budcat Creations (acquired in 2008 - closed in 2010)
- Centresoft (acquired in 1997 - closed around 2006)
- DemonWare (acquired in 2007)
- Digital Legends Entertainment (acquired in 2021)
- FreeStyleGames (acquired in 2008 - sold to Ubisoft as Ubisoft Leamington in 2017)
- Gray Matter Interactive Studios (acquired in 2002 - merged with Treyarch in 2005)
- High Moon Studios (acquired in 2008 from the Vivendi merger)
- Infinity Ward (acquired in 2003)
- Infinity Ward Poland (founded in 2018)
- Infocom (acquired in 1986, closed in 1989)
- Luxoflux (acquired in 2002, closed in 2010)
- Massive Entertainment (acquired in 2008 from the Vivendi merger - sold to Ubisoft almost immediately)
- Neversoft Entertainment (acquired in 1999 - merged into Infinity Ward in 2014)
- Radical Entertainment (acquired in 2008 from the Vivendi merger)
- Raven Software (acquired in 1997)
- RedOctane (acquired in 2006 - closed in 2010)
- Shaba Games (acquired in 2002 - closed in 2009)
- Sierra (label re-established in 2014)
- Sledgehammer Games (San Francisco) (founded in 2009)
- Sledgehammer Games Melbourne (founded in 2019)
- Sledgehammer Games Toronto (founded in 2021)
- Sledgehammer Games UK (founded in 2011 - previously known as Activision Leeds and The Blast Furnace)
- Solid State Studios (founded in 2021)
- Swordfish Studios (acquired in 2008 from the Vivendi merger - sold the Manchester studio to Monumental Games and the Birmingham studio to Codemasters almost immediately)
- Toys for Bob (acquired in 2005 - became independent again in 2024)
- Treyarch (acquired in 2001)
- Underground Development (acquired in 2002 as Z-Axis - closed in 2010)
- Vicarious Visions (acquired in 2005 - transferred to Blizzard Entertainment as Blizzard Albany in 2022)
- Wanako Studios (acquired in 2008 from the Vivendi merger - sold to Artificial Mind & Movement almost immediately)
Credited on 1,194 Games from 1980 to 2024
Displaying most recent · View all
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (2024 on Windows, Windows Apps, PlayStation 4...) |
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile (2024 on iPhone, iPad, Android) |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...) |
Crash Team Rumble (2023 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5...) |
Crash Team Rumble (Deluxe Edition) (2023 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5...) |
Pharaoh: A New Era (2023 on Windows) |
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 (2022 on Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series...) |
Call of Duty: MWII - Modern Warfare II (2022 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...) |
Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...) |
Call of Duty: Vanguard (Ultimate Edition) (2021 on Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, Xbox One...) |
Call of Duty: Vanguard - Cross-Gen Bundle (2021 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4) |
Crash Bandicoot: Crashiversary Bundle (2021 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch...) |
Crash Bandicoot: Quadrilogy Bundle (2021 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series...) |
Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (2020 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...) |
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (2020 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...) |
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (2020 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...) |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Campaign Remastered (2020 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One) |
Call of Duty: Warzone (2020 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One) |
Destiny 2: The Collection (2019 on Stadia) |
Crash Team Racing & Spyro-Spielepaket (2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One) |
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History +
- October 9, 2009
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The company confirms to have closed its development studio Shaba Games.
- April 6, 2009
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The company acquires the game development outfit 7 Studios.
- November 10, 2008
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The company announces to have acquired development studio Budcat Creations.
- September 12, 2008
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The company acquires development studio FreeStyleGames Ltd.
- July 9, 2008
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The company unveils the "Wee 1ST" brand for an upcoming series of casual Wii games.
[ view all ]
Trivia +
Activision are the first true third-party developers in history.
Ticker symbol for Actvision is ATVI.
Activision used to offer fabric patches (the one's you stitch on your jacket) for players that achieved high scores on their games. Players were to send in a photograph of their TV with their high score showing (as proof) and mail it in. Activision would then send back a patch.
The patches were intended for games of the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Intellivision, and Colecovision platforms. Not all Activision games offered patches however. These patches now are highly collectible items by the way.
[ view all ]
Related Web Sites +
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Activision Publishing, Inc.
official site -
Activision Patch Gallery at AtariAge.com
This page shows pictures of each of the patches, the games they were from and the requirements needed to have gotten them. -
The History of Activision
A feature article on Gamasutra (30th July 2007) -
Activision @ Wikipedia
The company profile at Wikipedia -
Legends of the C64
Articles dedicated to legendary pioneering companies and programmers featuring David Crane and Activision.
Frequent Collaborators
Companies- 271 games with Valve Corporation
- 234 games with Activision Blizzard UK Ltd.
- 154 games with Activision Deutschland GmbH
- 141 games with ATVI France SARL
- 138 games with NBG EDV Handels- und Verlags GmbH
- 93 games with Epic Games Tools LLC
- 79 games with Blizzard Albany
- 76 games with Effective Media GmbH
- 62 games with Ignited
- 45 games with Microsoft Corporation
- 328 games with Indra Yee
- 283 games with Jason Wong
- 267 games with Gary Bolduc
- 260 games with Michael Hill
- 242 games with Nadine Theuzillot
- 219 games with Marilena Morini
- 213 games with Jim Summers
- 212 games with Stephanie O'Malley Deming
- 198 games with Barry Kehoe
- 191 games with Tim Vanlaw
Browse Games
- All games by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Published by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Developed by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Ported by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Original Concept by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Distributed by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Sound Engine by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Package Design by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Marketed by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Testing by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Licensed by Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Contributions by Activision Publishing, Inc.
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