Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016.[5]
The company was founded as Activision, Inc. on October 1, 1979, in Sunnyvale, California, by former Atari game developers upset at their treatment by Atari in order to develop their own games for the popular Atari 2600 home video game console. Activision was the first independent, third-party, console video game developer. The video game crash of 1983, in part created by too many new companies trying to follow in Activision's footsteps without the experience of Activision's founders, hurt Activision's position in console games and forced the company to diversify into games for home computers, including the acquisition of Infocom. After a management shift, with CEO Jim Levy replaced by Bruce Davis, the company renamed itself to Mediagenic and branched out into business software applications. Mediagenic quickly fell into debt, and the company was bought for around US$500,000 by Bobby Kotick and a small group of investors around 1991.
Kotick drastically revamped and restructured the company to get it out of debt: dismissing most of its staff, moving the company to Los Angeles, and reverting to the Activision name. Building on existing assets, the Kotick-led Activision pursued more publishing opportunities and, after recovering from its former financial troubles, started acquiring numerous studios and various types of intellectual property over the 1990s and 2000s, among these being the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero series. A holding company was formed as Activision's parent company to manage both its internal and acquired studios. In 2008, this holding company merged with Vivendi Games (the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment) and formed Activision Blizzard, with Kotick as its CEO. Within this structure, Activision manages numerous third-party studios and publishes all games besides those created by Blizzard. In October 2023, Microsoftacquired parent company Activision Blizzard, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business. While part of the larger Microsoft Gaming division, Activision retains its function as the publisher of games developed by their studios.
History
Founding (1979)
Co-founder David Crane in 2013
In 1976, Warner Communications bought Atari, Inc. from Nolan Bushnell to help accelerate the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS or later the Atari 2600) to market by 1977. That same year, Atari began hiring programmers to create games for the system. Prior to Warner's acquisition, the company did not award bonus pay to programmers who worked on profitable games,[6][7] nor credit the programmers publicly, to prevent them from being recruited by rival game companies.[8] Warner Communication's management style was also different from Bushnell's. According to developer John Dunn, Warner management treated developers as engineers rather than creative staff, creating conflicts with staff.[9] Atari's CEO Ray Kassar, named to that position following Warner's acquisition in 1978, was committed to keeping production costs minimal for Warner, according to David Crane, one of Atari's programmers.[10]
In early 1979, Atari's marketing department circulated a memo listing the best-selling cartridges from the previous year to help guide game ideas.[10] Crane noted that the games he was fully responsible for had brought in over $20 million for the company but he was still only receiving a $20,000 salary.[11] Out of a development staff of thirty-five, four programmers (Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead), had produced games that had accounted for 60% of Atari's sales.[10]
Crane, Kaplan, Miller, and Whitehead became vocal about the lack of recognition within the company and became known as the "Gang of Four".[11] The group met with 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 claimed that "anybody can do a cartridge".[12]
The four made the decision to soon leave Atari and start their own business, but were not sure how to go about it.[11] In 1979, the concept of third-party developers did not exist,[13] as software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed;[14] thus the common thinking was that to make console games, one needed to make a console first.[10] The four decided to create their own independent game development company. They were directed by their attorney to Jim Levy, who was at the time raising venture capital to get into the software business for early home computers. Levy listened to their plans, agreed with its direction, and helped the four to secure about $1 million in capital from Sutter Hill Ventures.[11] They also checked with legal counsel on their plans to develop games for the Atari VCS, and included litigation fees in their capital investment.[10]
By August, Crane and Miller had left Atari, with Whitehead joining them shortly after.[12] Kaplan had also quit Atari in August, but initially decided not to join as he did not like the starting business plan; he came back later to join Activision that December.[15] Activision was formally founded on October 1, 1979, with Levy serving as CEO. The company was initially named "Computer Arts, Inc." while they considered a better title. The founders had thought of the name VSync, Inc., but feared that the public would not understand or know how to say it. Levy suggested combining "active" and "television" to come up with Activision.[16][17]
Early years (1980–1982)
Activision began working out of Crane's garage in the latter half of 1979, each programmer developing their own game that was planned for release in mid-1980, Dragster, Fishing Derby, Checkers, and Boxing.[10] The four's knowledge of the Atari 2600, as well as software tricks for the system, helped them make their own games visually distinct from Atari-produced games.[11] To further distinguish themselves, Activision's boxes were brightly colored and featured an in-game screenshot on the back cover.[11] Instruction manuals for games devoted at least one page to credit the developer. Additionally, for nearly all of Activision's games through 1983, the instruction manuals included instructions for sending the company a photograph of a player's high scores to receive a patch in return.[18]
Ahead of the release of the first four games, Activision obtained space at the mid-year 1980 Consumer Electronics Show to showcase their titles, and quickly obtained favorable press.[10] The attention afforded to Activision worried Atari, as the four's departure had already created a major dent in their development staff.[11] Atari initially tried to tarnish Activision's reputation by using industry press at CES to label those that took trade secrets as "evil, terrible people", according to Crane, and then later threatened to refuse to sell Atari games to retailers that also carried these Activision titles.[10] By the end of 1980, Atari filed a formal lawsuit against Activision to try to stop the company, claiming the four had stolen trade secrets and violated non-disclosure agreements.[10] The lawsuit was settled by 1982, with Activision agreeing to pay royalties to Atari but otherwise legitimizing the third-party development model.[11][19] In 2003, Activision's founders were given the Game Developers Choice "First Penguin" award, reflecting their being the first successful third-party developer in the video game industry.[20]
Following the first round of releases, each of the founders developed their own titles, about once a year, over the first few years of the company.[11] While their 1980 games were modest hits, one of the company's first successful games was Kaboom!, released in 1981, which was Activision's first game to sell over a million units.[10] Activision's breakout title was 1982's Pitfall!, created by Crane. More than four million copies of the game were sold.[21] Near the end of 1982, Kaplan left Activision to work on the development of the Amiga personal computer as he wanted to be more involved in hardware development.[22][10]
Total sales for Activision were estimated at $157 million and revenues at $60 million ahead of its June 1983 initial public offering; at this point Activision had around 60 employees.[11][10]Danny Goodman stated in Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games in 1983, "I doubt that there is an active [Atari 2600] owner who doesn't have at least one Activision cartridge in his library".[23] The company completed its public offering in June 1983 on NASDAQ under the stock ticker AVSN.[11][24]
The video game market crash (1983–1988)
The success of Activision, alongside the popularity of the Atari 2600, led to many more home consoles third-party developers as well as other home consoles. Activision produced some of its Atari games for the Intellivision and ColecoVision consoles, among other platforms.[25] However, several new third-party developers also arose, attempting to follow the approach Activision had used but without the experience they had; according to Crane, several of these companies were founded with venture capital and hired programmers with little game design experience off the street, mass-publishing whatever product the developers had made. This was a contributing factor to the video game crash of 1983.[11]
For Activision, while they survived the crash, they felt its effects in the following years. These third-party developers folded, leaving warehouses full of unsold games, which savvy retailers purchased and sold at a mass discount ($5 compared to Activision's $40manufacturer's suggested retail price). While there was still a demand for Activision games, uneducated consumers were more drawn to the heavily discounted titles instead, reducing their income.[11] Their quarterly revenue dropped from $50 million in mid-1983 to about $6–7 million by the end of 1984, according to Levy, and were forced to lay off staff, going from about 400 employees to 95 in that period.[26] Because of this, Activision decided that they needed to diversify their games onto home computers such as the Commodore 64, Apple, and Atari 8-bit family to avoid completely going out of business like other third-party developers.[11] There still was a drain of talent through 1985 from the crash. Miller and Whitehead left in 1984 due to the large devaluation of their stock and went to form Accolade.[11][22]
With the video game crash making console game development a risky proposition, the company focused on developing for home computers with games like Little Computer People and Hacker, while Levy tried to keep expenditures in check as they recovered.[11] Looking to expand further, Activision acquired, through a corporate merger, the struggling text adventure pioneer Infocom in June 1986. This acquisition was spearheaded by Levy, who was a big fan of Infocom's titles and felt the company was in a similar position as Activision.[22] About six months after the "Infocom Wedding", Activision's board decided to replace Levy with Bruce Davis. Davis was against the purchase of Infocom from the start and was heavy-handed in its management,[27] and even attempted to seek a lawsuit to recover their purchase from Infocom's shareholders.[11] Crane also found Davis difficult to work with and was concerned with how Davis managed the closure of Imagic, one of the third-party development studios formed in Activision's success in 1981.[11] Crane left Activision in 1986 and helped Garry Kitchen found Absolute Entertainment.[11] In late 1986, Activision adopted the Electric Dreams brand, usually used for British software, for titles outside of English for the American market.[28]
Mediagenic (1988–1991)
Mediagenic's former headquarters in Menlo Park, circa 2021
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.[30][11]
Gamestar: initially an independent company but purchased by Activision in 1986. Specialized in sports video games
Ten Point O: business application software
In 1989, after several years of losses, Activision closed down the Infocom studios, extending to only 11 of the 26 employees an offer to relocate to Activision's Silicon Valley headquarters. Five of them accepted this offer.[27]
Notably during this time, Mediagenic was known to have worked on the early version of a football game that would be the basis for Joe Montana Football. Sega of America's Michael Katz had been able to get Sega to pay Mediagenic around early 1990 to develop this into the branded version after securing the rights to Joe Montana's name, but was unaware of internal troubles that had been going on within the company, which had left the state of the game mostly unfinished. Katz and Sega were forced to take the incomplete game to Electronic Arts, which had been developing its own John Madden Football series for personal computers, to complete the game.[31]
During this period Mediagenic, via Activision, secured the rights to distribute games from Cyan Worlds. The first game published by Activision from Cyan was The Manhole, on CD-ROM for personal computers, the first major game distributed in this format.[32][33][10]
Purchase by Bobby Kotick (1991–1997)
Davis' management of Mediagenic failed to produce a profitable company; in 1991, Mediagenic reported a loss of $26.8 million on only $28.8 million of revenue and had over $60 million in debt.[11][34] Cyan severed their contract with Activision, and turned to Broderbund for publishing, including what would become one of the most significant computer games of the 1990s, Myst.[34]
Bobby Kotick
Bobby Kotick had become interested in the value of the video game industry following the crash, and he and three other investors worked to buy Commodore International in an effort to gain access to the Amiga line of personal computers. After failing to complete purchase, the group bought a company that licensed Nintendo characters, and through Nintendo was directed to the failing Mediagenic.[35] Kotick was drawn to buy out Mediagenic not for its current offerings but for the Activision name, given its past successes with Pitfall!, with hopes to restore Activision to its former glory.[36] Crane said that Kotick has recognized the Activision brand name could be valued around $50 million and rather than start a new company and spend that amount to obtain the same reputation, he saw the opportunity to buy the failing Mediagenic at a bargain price and gain Activision's reputation with minimal cost.[10] Kotick and additional investors bought Mediagenic for approximately $500,000 in 1991. This group of investors included real estate businessman Steve Wynn and Philips Electronics.[37][35]
Kotick became CEO of Mediagenic on its purchase and made several immediate changes: He let go of all but 8 of the companies' 150 employees, performed a full restructuring of the company, developed a bankruptcy restructuring plan, and reincorporated the company in Los Angeles, California.[19] In the bankruptcy plan, Kotick recognized that Mediagenic still had valuable assets, which included the Infocom library as well as its authoring tools to make games, Activision's distribution network, and licenses to develop on Nintendo and Sega home consoles.[34] Kotick offset some debt by giving stock in the company to its distributors as to keep them vested in the company's success.[34] Kotick also had the company reissue several of its past console and Infocom titles as compilations for personal computers. Kotick had also recognized the value of the Zork property from Infocom, and had the company develop a sequel, Return to Zork. Combined, these steps allowed Mediagenic to fulfill on the bankruptcy plan, and by the end of 1992, Kotick renamed Mediagenic to the original Activision name.[34] The new Activision went public in October 1993, raising about $40 million,[19] and was listed on NASDAQ under its new ticker symbol ATVI.[37]
By 1995, Kotick's approach had met one promise he made to investors: that he would give them four years of 50% growth in revenues while remaining break-even. Reaching this goal, Kotick then set Activision on his second promise to investors, to develop high-demand games and make the company profitable by 1997.[34]
Activision published the first-person perspective MechWarrior in 1989, based on FASA's pen-and-paper 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 Bear's Legacy, and MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. The entire MechWarrior 2 game series accounted for more than US$70million 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 1998's Battlezone.
Growth and acquisitions (1997–2008)
With several of its own successfully developed games helping to turn a profit, Kotick led Activision to start seeking acquisitions of video game development studios, guided by market surveys to determine what areas of content to focus on.[35] It is estimated that between 1997 and 2008, Activision made 25 acquisitions, several for undisclosed amounts. Several of these came prior to 2001, in the midst of the Dot-com bubble, enabling the company to acquire studios at a lower valuation.[35] On June 16, 2000, Activision reorganized as a holding company, Activision Holdings, to manage Activision and its subsidiaries more effectively.[38] Activision changed its corporate name from "Activision, Inc." to "Activision Publishing, Inc.", while Activision Holdings took Activision's former "Activision, Inc." name.[38] Activision Publishing became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision, which in turn became the publicly traded company, with all outstanding shares of capital stock converted.[38][39]
Some of the key acquisitions and investments made by Activision in this period include:
Raven Software: Raven was founded in 1990; because of their close proximity, Raven frequently collaborated with id Software, and one of the studio's early successes was the Heretic series using id's Doom engine. Around 1997, Raven's founders Brian and Steve Raffel felt the need to seek a parent company. They arranged a publishing deal with Activision in 1997, which not only served to provide Raven additional financial support, but also gave Activision the opportunity to work closely with id Software and gain business relationships with them.[40] By the end of 1997, Activision acquired Raven as one of its first subsidiaries under Kotick.[41] The acquisition price was $12 million.[42]
Neversoft: Prior to its acquisition in 2000, Activision had arranged a development deal with Neversoft to re-develop Apocalypse, a title that failed to be completed within Activision. Subsequently, Activision had Neversoft work on a prototype for a skateboarding game, which would end up becoming the first in the Tony Hawk's series of skateboarding video games. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was a critical success, leading Activision to acquire Neversoft in April 2000.[43] After eight games, the series has brought in $1.6 billion.[19]
Infinity Ward: After Electronic Arts released Medal of Honor: Allied Assault in 2002, several of the developers from 2015, Inc., disenchanted with their current contracts, left to form a new studio, Infinity Ward. Kotick himself provided the group with startup funding, as they were seeking to develop a similar title to Medal of Honor. Activision acquired the studio for $5 million in January 2003, and later publish their first title, Call of Duty, directly competing with Electronic Arts.[19] The Call of Duty series has since seen nearly yearly releases and as of 2016 had sold more than 250 million units and brought in more than $12 billion in revenue.[44]
Treyarch: The Santa Monica, California studio was founded in 1996. With the success of the first Tony Hawk game from Neversoft, Activision used Treyarch to assist in further Tony Hawk games as well as to develop titles using Activision's license of Marvel's Spider-Man. Activision acquired the studio in 2001 for about $20 million.[45] Following the success of Call of Duty from Infinity Ward, Activision moved Treyarch to assist in the series' development, trading off each year' major release between the two studios.
Gray Matter Studios: While Gray Matter was originally founded in 1993 as Xatrix Entertainment, it was rebranded to Gray Matter in 1999 as they began work on Return to Castle Wolfenstein, in conjunction with Nerve Software and oversight by id Software who owned the Castle Wolfenstein IP. Activision, the game's publisher, acquired a portion of Gray Matter's stock during this time. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a critical and financial success, and led Activision to acquire the remaining shares of Gray Matter in 2002 for about $3.2 million,[46] with the intent to help Infinity Ward expand out the Call of Duty franchise. In 2005, Activision made the decision to merge the smaller Gray Matter into the larger Treyarch to put their combined talents towards Call of Duty 3.[47]
RedOctane: Around 2005, Red Octane was co-developing Guitar Hero, a console game based on the arcade game GuitarFreaks, with Harmonix; Harmonix was developing the software while RedOctane developed the instrument controllers. Guitar Hero was a major success. Activision purchased RedOctane for nearly $100 million in June 2006. The series has since earned more than $2 billion in revenues.[19]
Toys for Bob: Toys for Bob was founded by Paul Reiche III, Fred Ford, and Terry Falls in 1989 and gained success in developing the first two Star Control games, and later made film-to-video game adaptions. Activision purchased the studio in 2005, and had given them work on some of the Tony Hawk's games as well as other licensed properties.[48] Following Activision's merger with Vivendi, Activision gained the Spyro intellectual property and assigned Toys for Bob to develop the series in a new direction, leading to the toys-to-lifeSkylanders series.[49]
While Activision was highly successful with its range of developers and successful series, Kotick was concerned that they did not have a title for the growing massively multiplayer online market, which presented the opportunity for continued revenues from subscription models and microtransactions instead of the revenue from a single sale. Around 2006, Kotick contacted Jean-Bernard Lévy, the new CEO of Vivendi, a French media conglomerate. Vivendi had a games division, Vivendi Games, that was struggling to be viable at the time, but its principal feature was that it owned Blizzard Entertainment and its highly successful World of Warcraft game, which was drawing in $1.1 billion a year in subscription fees. Vivendi Games also owned Sierra Entertainment.[19]
Lévy recognized Kotick wanted control of World of Warcraft, and offered to allow the companies to merge, but only if Lévy held the majority shares in the merged group, forcing Kotick to cede control. Kotick fretted about this decision for a while, according to friends and investors. During this time in 2006–2007, some of Activision's former successful properties began to wane, such as Tony Hawk's, so Activision bought RedOctane, the publisher of the Guitar Hero franchise.[19] Kotick met with Blizzard's president Mike Morhaime, and learned that Blizzard also had a successful inroad into getting their games into China, a potentially lucrative market. Given this potential opportunity, Kotick agreed to the merger.[19]
Activision's board signed on to the merger by December 2007.[50] The merger was completed in July 2008. The new company was called Activision Blizzard and was headed by Kotick, while Vivendi maintained a 52% share in the company.[19][51] The new company was estimated to be worth US$18.9billion, ahead of Electronic Arts, which was valued at US$14.1billion.[52]
Post-merger developments (2009–present)
Activision Publishing remains a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard following the merger, and is responsible for developing, producing, and distributing games from its internal and subsidiary studios. Eric Hirshberg was announced as Activision Publishing's CEO in 2010.[39]
Activision Publishing established Sledgehammer Games in November 2009. Formed earlier in 2009 by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, former Visceral Games leads that had worked on Dead Space, Sledgehammer intended to develop a Call of Duty spin-off title fashioned after the gameplay in Dead Space. However, in early 2010, legal issues between Infinity Ward and Activision Blizzard led to several members of Infinity Ward leaving, and Activision assigned Sledgehammer to assist Infinity Ward in the next major Call of Duty title, Modern Warfare 3.[53] Since then, Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch share development duties for the flagship series, with support from Raven and other studios as necessary.
In February 2010, Activision Blizzard reported significant losses in revenue stemming from a slow down in Guitar Hero sales and from its more casual games. Subsequently, Activision Publishing shuttered Red Octane, Luxoflux and Underground Development as well as laid off about 25% of the staff at Neversoft.[54][55] Within the same year, Activision shuttered Budcat Creations in November 2010, and Bizarre Creations in February 2011.[56][57]
Hirshberg left the CEO position in March 2018.[58]
Into the 2020s, Activision put more focus on the Call of Duty franchise, including the release of the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone in 2020. By April 2021, the company had assigned all of its internal studios to work on some part of the Call of Duty franchise.[59] This includes a new studio, Activision Mobile, devoted to the Call of Duty Mobile title as reported in August 2021.[60][61]
In 2021, while all their employees were working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, Activision and its parent Activision Blizzard vacated their longtime headquarters building in Santa Monica and ended their lease with Boston Properties. In September 2021, they subleased a much smaller office space in Santa Monica at the Pen Factory (a former Paper Mate factory) from Kite Pharma, which had leased the space from Lincoln Property Company.[62]
Bizarre Creations in Liverpool, England, founded as Raising Hell Productions in 1987 and changed name in 1994, acquired on September 26, 2007,[69] closed on February 18, 2011.[57]
FreeStyleGames in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, United Kingdom, founded in 2002, acquired on September 12, 2008, sold to Ubisoft on January 18, 2017, subsequently renamed Ubisoft Leamington.
Neversoft in Los Angeles, California, founded in July 1994, acquired in October 1999, merged into Infinity Ward on May 3, 2014[70] and was officially made defunct on July 10, 2014.[71]
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded in February 1991 as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios' games before beginning development of their own software in 1993, with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1993, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., and then Blizzard Entertainment soon after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates early in the following year. Shortly after, Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called Cornerstone.
Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Wisconsin and founded in 1990. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them. After the acquisition, many of the studio's original developers, largely responsible for creating the Heretic and Hexen: Beyond Heretic games, left to form Human Head Studios.
A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with employee responsibilities split between individual disciplines, such as programmers, designers, artists, etc. Most game development companies have video game publisher financial and usually marketing support. Self-funded developers are known as independent or indie developers and usually make indie games.
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, Mystery House. It is known for its graphical adventure game series King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory, and as the original publisher of Valve's Half-Life series.
Return to Zork is a 1993 graphic adventure game in the Zork series. It was developed by Activision and was the final Zork game to be published under the Infocom label.
Infinity Ward, Inc. is an American video game developer. They developed the video game Call of Duty, along with seven other installments in the Call of Duty series. Vince Zampella, Grant Collier, and Jason West established Infinity Ward in 2002 after working at 2015, Inc. previously. All of the 22 original team members of Infinity Ward came from the team that had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault while at 2015, Inc. Activision helped fund Infinity Ward in its early days, buying up 30 percent of the company, before eventually fully acquiring them. The studio's first game, World War II shooter Call of Duty, was released on the PC in 2003. The day after the game was released, Activision bought the rest of Infinity Ward, signing employees to long-term contracts. Infinity Ward went on to make Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the Modern Warfare reboot, and its sequel.
Neversoft Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Woodland Hills, California. The studio was founded by Joel Jewett, Mick West and Chris Ward in July 1994 and was acquired by Activision in October 1999. Initially, the studio worked with Playmates Toys, where they worked on the game Skeleton Warriors, which was based on a animated television series of the same name. Throughout 1996, the studio grew, and worked on projects with Crystal Dynamics and Sony Computer Entertainment, but due to internal conflicts, they were cancelled.
Treyarch Corporation is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1996 by Peter Akemann and Doğan Köslü, it was acquired by Activision in 2001. The studio is known for its work for the Call of Duty series, which it develops alongside Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software.
Toys for Bob, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Novato, California. It was founded in 1989 by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford and is best known for creating Star Control and the Skylanders franchise, as well as for working on the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro franchises.
Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Associates and Sierra On-Line. Between 1997 and 2001, the company switched parents and names multiple times before ending up organized under Vivendi Universal. On July 10, 2008, Vivendi Games merged with Activision to create Activision Blizzard.
Call of Duty, also referred to as (COD), is a video game series and media franchise published by Activision, starting in 2003. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. Several spin-off and handheld games were made by other developers. The most recent title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, was released on November 10, 2023.
Bruce L. Davis is an American businessman, most recently CEO and chairman of Digimarc. Formerly the head of both Imagic and Activision.
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes five business units: Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, King, Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios.
Robert A. Kotick is an American businessman who served as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard and previously Activision from 1991 to 2023. He became the CEO of Activision after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick engineered a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games during the late 2000s, which led to the creation of Activision Blizzard in 2008 and him being named the company's inaugural CEO. He has also served on several boards, including The Coca-Cola Company from 2012 to 2022, and Yahoo! from 2003 to 2008. Following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, Kotick retired from the company on December 29, 2023.
Video gaming in the United States is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the country. The American video game industry is the largest video game industry in the world. According to a 2020 study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the yearly economic output of the American video game industry in 2019 was $90.3 billion, supporting over 429,000 American jobs. With an average yearly salary of about $121,000, the latter figure includes over 143,000 individuals who are directly employed by the video game business. Additionally, activities connected to the video game business generate $12.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025 the American gaming industry will reach $42.3 billion while worldwide gaming industry will possibly reach US$270 billion. The United States is one of the nations with the largest influence in the video game industry, with video games representing a significant part of its economy.
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard is a current lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), now the Civil Rights Department (CRD) against video game developer Activision Blizzard in July 2021. The lawsuit asserts that management of Activision Blizzard allowed and at times encouraged sexual misconduct towards female employees, that the company maintained a "frat boy" culture, and that the company's hiring and employment practices were discriminatory against women.
On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The deal was concluded on October 13, 2023, with the total cost of the acquisition amounting to $75.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft brought Activision Blizzard under its Microsoft Gaming business unit as a sibling division to Xbox Game Studios and ZeniMax Media. With it, Microsoft gained ownership of several franchises under Activision, Blizzard Entertainment, and King, including Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and Candy Crush. As of 2023, the acquisition is the largest video game acquisition by transaction value in history.
↑ DeMaria, Rusel; Wilson, Johnny L. (2003). High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games (2ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne. p.56. ISBN0-07-223172-6.
1 2 Hubner, John; Kistner, William F. Jr. (November 28, 1983). "What went wrong at Atari?". InfoWorld. Originally published in the San Jose Mercury News. p.151. Archived from the original on January 24, 2021. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
↑ DeMaria, Rusel; Wilson, Johnny L. (2003). High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games (2ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne. pp.103–105. ISBN0-07-223172-6.
↑ King, Steven L. (2010). "Chapter 22: The Year of the Hardware". The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 1: From Pong to Pokemon and Beyond ... the Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Crown. ISBN978-0307560872.
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