| 4th | Top assets owned by Vivendi |
| 25th | Top California companies |
 |
|
| Type | Subsidiary of Activision Blizzard |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1979 |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, USA |
| Area served |  Worldwide |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Products | Crash Bandicoot series Call of Duty series Guitar Hero series Spider-Man series Spyro the Dragon series Tony Hawk series James Bond series |
| Revenue | ▲USD $2.9 billion (2008)[1] |
| Owner(s) |  Vivendi |
| Parent | Activision Blizzard |
| Website | Activision.com |
Activision (ATVI) is an American video game developer and publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. It was founded on October 1, 1979[2] and was the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system. 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.[3] On January 18, 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group.[4]
On December 2, 2007, it was announced that Activision would be acquired by Vivendi, with Vivendi contributing its gaming division plus cash, in exchange for a majority stake in the new group. The merger between Activision and Vivendi Games took place on July 9, 2008, with the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard.[5] Activision will still exist as a subsidiary owned by Activision Blizzard, and it will still develop and publish games such as Call of Duty, and Guitar Hero, along with some of Vivendi's owned IPs. Activision announced in 2008 that they may sell the Sierra brand.
Contents |
Before the formation of Activision, software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed. 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. This caused several programmers to resign from their jobs. Activision became the first third-party game publisher for game consoles.[6]
The company was founded by former music industry executive Jim Levy and former Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. Atari's company policy at the time was not to credit game creators for their individual contributions; Levy took the approach of crediting and promoting game creators along with the games themselves. The steps taken for this included devoting a page to the developer in their instruction manuals[7][8][9] and challenging players to send in a high score (usually as a photograph, but sometimes as a letter) in order to receive a patch.[10][11][12][13] These draws 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, caused legal action between the two companies which 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!, which is considered by many to be the first platform game[citation needed] as well as 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. This also launched the entire platform genre which became a major part of video games through the 1980s.
On June 13, 1986, Activision merged with struggling text adventure pioneer Infocom. Jim Levy was a big fan of Infocom's titles and wanted Infocom 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.[14]
In 1988, Activision started to get involved in other types of software besides video games, such as business applications. As a result, Activision changed its corporate name to Mediagenic in order to have a name that would globally represent all its fields of 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 patent infringement suit where infringement had been determined many years prior during the Levy era, a financially weakened Mediagenic was taken over by an investor group lead by Robert Kotick. After taking over the company, the new management filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization. In the reorganization, they merged Mediagenic with The Disc Company. While emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic continued to develop games for PCs and video game consoles, and resumed making strategic acquisitions. After emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic officially changed its entity name back to Activision on 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 only concentrate on video gaming and nothing else.
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 didn't violate their licensing agreement. These included NetMech, MechWarrior 2: Ghost Bears Legacy, and MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. The entire MechWarrior 2 series of games accounted for more than $70 million dollars in sales.[15]
Activision procured the license to another pen-and-paper-based war-game: Heavy Gear, released in 1997. The Mechwarrior 2 engine was also used in other Activision games, including 1997's Interstate '76 and finally 1998's Battlezone.[16]
| Year | Acquisition | |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Raven Software made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequentally acquired by them. This partnership resulted in Hexen II, Heretic II, Soldier of Fortune, its sequel and Quake 4. That same year, Activision acquired CentreSoft Ltd., (an independent distributor in the United Kingdom) and NBG Distribution (a German distributor). | |
| 1998 | Pandemic Studios was founded with an equity investment by Activision. Pandemic's first two games, Battlezone II: Combat Commander and Dark Reign 2, were both sequels to Activision games. That same year, Activision also inked deals with Marvel Entertainment, Head Game Publishing, Disney Interactive, LucasArts Entertainment and CD Contact Data. | |
| 1999 | Activision acquired Neversoft, best recognized for their line of Tony Hawk skateboarding games. That same year, Activision acquired Expert Software (maker of Home Design 3D). | |
| 2000 | Activision made an equity investment in Gray Matter Interactive, to develop the follow-up to id Software's Wolfenstein 3D. | |
| 2001 | Activision acquired rights to Columbia Pictures' feature film Spider-Man. That same year, Activision also acquired Treyarch. | |
| 2002 | Activision made an equity investment in Infinity Ward, a newly formed studio comprised of 22 of the individuals who developed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. That same year, Activision acquired Z-Axis Ltd. (the studio behind Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX) and Luxoflux Corporation. | |
| 2003 | Activision and DreamWorks SKG inked a multi-year, multi-property publishing agreement. That same year, Activision also formed a partnership with Valve and acquired both Infinity Ward (developers of the Call of Duty franchise) and software developer Shaba Games LLC.
Activision and Sega made a deal to publish the US releases of PC versions of some titles, especially Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut. Activision, along with several other game software publishers, was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its accounting practices, namely the use of the "return reserve" to allegedly smooth quarterly results. |
|
| 2004 | The company marked its 25th anniversary, and stated that it had posted record earnings and the twelfth consecutive year of revenue growth. | |
| 2005 | Activision acquired game developers Vicarious Visions, Toys For Bob and Beenox. | |
| 2006 | Activision secured the video game license to make games based on the world of James Bond from MGM Interactive. An exclusive agreement between the two begins in September 2007 with Activision's first game set to be released in May 2008 being developed by Treyarch, Beenox and Vicarious Visions.[17] Also in 2006, Activision acquired publisher RedOctane, Inc. (the publisher of the Guitar Hero franchise). | |
| 2007 | Activision acquired the control of games developer Bizarre Creations. | |
| 2007 | Activision acquired Irish multiplayer technology company Demonware.[18] | |
| 2008 | Merger with Vivendi (who owned Blizzard) to become Activision Blizzard.[19] | |
| 2008 | Activision acquired UK games studio FreeStyleGames.[20] | |
| 2009 | Activision acquired Los Angeles based developer Seven Studios.[21] |
In December 2007, it was announced that Activision would merge with Vivendi Games which owns fellow games developer and publisher Blizzard, and the merger would later close in July 2008. The new company is called Activision Blizzard and is headed by Activision's former CEO, Robert Kotick. Vivendi is the biggest shareholder in the new group.[22] The new company is estimated to be worth $18.9 billion, ahead of Electronic Arts who is valued at $14.1 billion.[23]
Sledgehammer Games was founded on November 17, 2009 by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey,[24] who left Electronic Arts subsidiary Visceral Games to found Sledgehammer Games.[25][26][27]
The Sledgehammer Games microsite went live on December 8, 2009 with information on the studio development team, location, and current job openings are now available. Speculation on the studio's next game have been offered by industry sites Kotaku and Gamasutra.[28]
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Activision | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Founded | October 1, 1979 |
| Located | Santa Monica, CA |
| Website | http://activision.com/ |
Activision was the first independent developer and distributor of video games, and its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600. It is currently second only in size to Electronic Arts.
Activision was started by rogue Atari developers, as a way to get credit for games they developed. The business developed well after some early legal problems with Atari, and they released many titles, such as Pitfall!, which is arguably the first platform game.
In 1988, they branched out into other areas of software, and changed their name to "Mediagenic". However, this turned out to be a bad move, and in 1992, they filed for bankruptcy. After a merger with The Disc Company, Mediagenic changed its name back to "Activision", and came out of bankruptcy. With the release of titles such as The Lost Treasures of Infocom, and a whole host of Star Trek games due to a license with Paramount, Activision started a twelve-year revenue growth period from 1996 onwards.
Recently, they have acquired the James Bond game license from MGM Interactive, and the first game is expected to be delivered mid-2008.
This category has the following 6 subcategories, out of 6 total.
The following 99 pages are in this category, out of 99 total.
A
B
C
DE
FG
J
K |
K cont.L
M
O
P
QR
S |
S cont.
T
UV
W
X
|
| Activision | |
 |
|
| Type | Subsidiary of Activision Blizzard |
| Founded | October 1, 1979 |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, CA, USA |
| Products | Computer and video games |
| Parent Company | N/A |
| Website | Activision.com Homepage |
Activision was an American video game developer and publisher. It was founded on October 1, 1979.[1], and was the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system. 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 [2] On January 18, 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group.[3]
On December 2, 2007, it was announced that Activision would be acquired by Vivendi. The merger took place on July 9, 2008, with the newly formed company Activision Blizzard, owned by the French company, Vivendi. [4]
Contents |
Before the formation of Activision, software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed. 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. This caused several programmers to resign from their jobs. Activision became the first third-party game publisher for game consoles.[5]
The company was founded by former music industry executive Jim Levy and former Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. Atari's company policy at the time was not to credit game creators for their individual contributions; Levy took the approach of crediting and promoting game creators along with the games themselves. The steps taken for this included devoting a page to the developer in their instruction manuals[6][7][8] and challenging players to send in a high score (usually as a photograph, but sometimes as a letter) in order to receive a patch.[9][10][11][12] These draws 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, caused legal action between the two companies which 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!, which is considered by many to be the first platform game as well as the 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. This also launched the entire platform genre which became a major part of video games through the 1980s.
On June 13, 1986, Activision merged with struggling text adventure pioneer Infocom. Jim Levy was a big fan of Infocom's titles and wanted Infocom 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. He also made marketing changes on Infocom which caused sales of their games to plummet. 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.[13]
In 1988, Activision started to get involved in other types of software besides video games, such as business applications. As a result, Activision changed its corporate name to Mediagenic in order to have a name that would globally represent all its fields of activities. (Mediagenic is often mistaken to be a company that purchased Activision but in reality it was only Activision with a different name). Despite this change, Mediagenic continued to largely use the Activision brand on its video games of the various platforms it was publishing for, notably the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, the Atari 7800, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and Amiga. The decision of the company to get involved in various fields at the expense of video gaming proved to be a move so bad that in 1992 Mediagenic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Between 1984 and 1986, an in-house development team, Software Conversions Ltd, were responsible for converting Activision's games to different platforms, such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.[14]
The failure of Mediagenic resulted in a reorganization and merger with The Disc Company, with Mediagenic again being the acquirer. After emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic officially changed its entity name back to Activision in the state of Delaware on December 1992. At that point Activision moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Southern California. While emerging from bankruptcy, it continued to develop games for PCs and video game consoles, and resumed making strategic acquisitions. Activision chose from then on to only concentrate on video gaming and nothing else.
In 1991, Activision packaged 20 of Infocom's past games into a CD-ROM collection called The Lost Treasures of Infocom sans most of 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.
| Year | Acquisition |
|---|---|
| 1997 | Raven Software made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequentally acquired by them. This partnership resulted in HeXen II, Heretic II, Soldier of Fortune, its sequel and Quake 2. That same year, Activision acquired CentreSoft Ltd., (an independent distributor in the United Kingdom) and NBG Distribution (a German distributor). |
| 1998 | Pandemic Studios was founded with an equity investment by Activision. Pandemic's first two games, Battlezone II and Dark Reign 2, were both sequels to Activision games. That same year, Activision also inked deals with Marvel Entertainment, Head Game Publishing, Disney Interactive, LucasArts Entertainment and CD Contact Data. |
| 1999 | Activision acquired Neversoft Entertainment, best recognized for their line of Tony Hawk skateboarding games. That same year, Activision acquired Expert Software (maker of Home Design 3D). |
| 2000 | Activision made an equity investment in Gray Matter Interactive, to develop the follow-up to id Software's Wolfenstein 3D. |
| 2001 | Activision acquired rights to Columbia Pictures' feature film Spider-Man. That same year, Activision also acquired Treyarch Invention LLC. |
| 2002 | Activision made an equity investment in Infinity Ward, a newly formed studio comprised of 22 of the individuals who developed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. That same year, Activision acquired Z-Axis Ltd. (the studio behind Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX) and Luxoflux Corporation. |
| 2003 | Activision and DreamWorks SKG inked a multi-year, multi-property publishing agreement. That same year, Activision also formed a partnership with Valve and acquired both Infinity Ward (developers of the Call of Duty franchise) and software developer Shaba Games LLC.
Activision and Sega Corporation made a deal to publish the US releases of P.C. versions of some titles, especially Sonic Adventure DX, Director's Cut. Activision, along with several other game software publishers, was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its accounting practices, namely the use of the "return reserve" to allegedly smooth quarterly results. |
| 2004 | The company marked its 25th anniversary, and stated that it had posted record earnings and the twelfth consecutive year of revenue growth. |
| 2005 | Activision acquired game developers Vicarious Visions, Toys for Bob and Beenox, Inc.. |
| 2006 | Activision secured the video game license to make games based on the world of James Bond from MGM Interactive. An exclusive agreement between the two begins in September 2007 with Activision's first game set to be released in May 2008 being developed by Treyarch, Beenox and Vicarious Visions.[15] Also in 2006, Activision acquired publisher RedOctane, Inc. (the publisher of the Guitar Hero franchise). |
| 2007 | Activision acquired the control of games developer Bizarre Creations. |
| 2007 | Activision acquired Irish multiplayer technology company Demonware. [16] |
| 2008 | Merger with Vivendi (who owned Blizzard) to form Activision's parent company, Activision Blizzard. [17] |
| 2008 | Activision acquired UK games studio FreeStyleGames.[18] |
In December 2007, it was announced that Activision would merge with Vivendi Games which owns fellow games developer and publisher Blizzard, and the merger would later close in July 2008. The new company is called Activision Blizzard and is headed by Activision's former CEO, Bobby Kotick. Vivendi is the biggest shareholder in the new group. [19] The new company is estimated to be worth $18.9 billion, slightly ahead of Electronic Arts who is valued at $14.1 billion.[20]
 |
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Activision. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Wikia Gaming, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (unported) license. The content might also be available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. |
Activision is an American video game company. It was the first third party in the industry's history. It was founded on October 1, 1979. It is going to merge with Vivendi and will be called Activision Blizzard. Activision is best known for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Call of Duty, and Guitar Hero.
   | Treyarch - Treyarch > Defining the Next Level |
| | Neversoft Entertainment - Neversoft Entertainment - Makers of Guitar Hero(R) World Tour , Guitar Hero(R) Metallica(R), Guitar Hero (R) III: Legends of Rock, and other upcoming projects! |
| | Vicarious Visions - Vicarious Visions, Inc: game developer, video games, software, wii, playstation, gaming, gamecube, pc games, Nintendo DS, xbox, gamers, ps3, tony hawk, guitar hero - Home |
| | ATVI - ATVI stock quote - Activision Blizzard, Inc stock price - NASDAQ.com |
| | Activision - Investor Realtions: Historical Timeline - Activision | Blizzard - Historical Timeline |
| | Activision Publishing, Inc. - MobyGames - Activision Publishing, Inc. |
| | Classic Gaming Expo Distinguished Guest: Alan Miller - Classic Gaming Expo - Alan Miller |
| | 1982 Corporate Ad - FAZED Videos - Activision Corporate Ad |
| | Activision Beats EA As Top Third Party Publisher In U.S. - Gamasutra - News - Activision Beats EA As Top Third Party Publisher In U.S. |
| | Activision Dates 'Call of Duty 4'; Drops Word on Bond Title - Activision Dates 'Call of Duty 4'; Drops Word on Bond Title » Forum Post by iTZKooPA |
| | Activision History - SPOnG: Video gaming news, opinion & discussion - computer games database from Atari to PC, Wii, DS, PSP, PS3 and 360 |
|
|
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Misc
Search
