Activision

History

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. For example, Atari was the only publisher of games for the Atari 2600. This was particularly galling to the developers, as they received neither financial rewards nor credit for games that sold well.

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 with former music industry executive Jim Levy and venture capitalist Richard Muchmore; Kaplan joined soon. David Crane has said the name "Activision" was based on Jim Levy's idea to combine 'active' and 'television'. The original name proposed for the company was VSync, Inc.

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 and challenging players to send in a high score (usually as a photograph, but letters were acceptable) in order to receive an embroidered patch. These approaches helped the newly formed company attract experienced talent. In recognition of this step, Kaplan, Levy, Miller, and Whitehead received the Game Developers Choice "First Penguin" award in 2003.

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 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! on the Atari 2600. Designed and developed by David Crane, it was a huge 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 Silicon Valley headquarters. Five of them accepted this offer.

In 1988, Activision began involvement in software besides video games, such as business applications. As a result, Activision changed its corporate name to Mediagenic to better represent all of its activities.

Mediagenic consisted of four groups:

New Activision

Following a multi-million judgment on damages in a patent infringement suit, wherein infringement had been determined many years prior during the Levy era, a financially weakened Mediagenic was taken over by an investor group led by Robert Kotick. After taking over the company, the new management filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization. In the reorganization, Mediagenic merged with The Disc Company with Mediagenic being the surviving company. Mediagenic, through Activision, continued to publish games for PCs and video game consoles, but stopped making strategic acquisitions. After emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic officially changed its corporate 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 Silicon Valley to Santa Monica in Southern California and from then on concentrated 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. A sequel, MechWarrior 2, was released in 1995 after two years of delays and internal struggles, prompting FASA not to renew 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.

Activision procured the license to another pen-and-paper-based war game, Heavy Gear, in 1997. The video game version was well received by critics, with an 81.46% average rating on GameRankings 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.

In June 2000, Activision Holdings was created as a holding company to manage more effectively Activision and its subsidiaries. Immediately after, Activision changed its corporation name from "Activision Inc" to "Activision Publishing", while Activision Holdings took Activision's former corporate name of Activision Inc.

Merger with Vivendi

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 was headed by Activision's former CEO, Robert Kotick. Vivendi was the biggest shareholder in the new group. The new company was estimated to be worth US$18.9 billion, ahead of Electronic Arts, which was valued at US$14.1 billion.

Post-merger developments

Sledgehammer Games was founded on November 17, 2009 by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, who left Electronic Arts subsidiary, Visceral Games.

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. 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 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.

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.

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. The game was roundly ignored by critics, with no review scores available on Metacritic as of February 2012.

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