Activision Blizzard, Inc.

Activision Blizzard, Inc., American developer and manufacturer of electronic games. The company was formed in 2008 by the merger of Activision, an entertainment software publisher that traced its roots to the original Atari game console, and Vivendi Games, the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment, a PC software publisher best known for the Diablo, Warcraft, and StarCraft franchises and for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft. At the conclusion of the merger, in which Activision was the senior partner, Vivendi purchased 52 percent of the stock in the newly formed Activision Blizzard. Both Activision and Blizzard maintained distinct corporate identities, with independent development and publishing streams. In January 2022 Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion; that deal was concluded in October 2023. The company’s corporate headquarters are located in Santa Monica, California.

The history of Activision

Activision was founded in 1979 by David Crane and Alan Miller—game designers who split with Atari over issues of creator’s rights—and entertainment executive Jim Levy. Their response was to create a company where designers would be an essential part of the brand identity, with the lead developer of a given title receiving credit on the game box. Soon after the company’s formation, they were joined by fellow Atari designers Larry Kaplan and Bob Whitehead. As the electronic gaming industry’s first third-party software developer, Activision immediately faced a legal challenge from Atari, which attempted to preserve its monopoly on games for the Atari VCS system. That suit was settled in 1982, but by that time Activision had already established itself as a thriving competitor in an expanding industry. Games such as Chopper Command and River Raid sported vibrant graphics and fluid gameplay, and Pitfall! represented one of the earliest examples of the platform game genre.

The success of Activision inspired a wave of imitators, and soon the market was flooded with games of dubious quality. Between 1983 and 1984 the industry collapsed under the weight of its own overexpansion. Activision weathered the storm by shifting its focus to the burgeoning home computer market, but the ill-timed acquisition of text-based adventure game publisher Infocom almost doomed the company. A corporate reorganization led to the departure of much of the company’s creative talent, including the last of its founders, and in 1988 the Activision name was abandoned in favour of Mediagenic, as executives attempted to rebrand the company as a multipurpose software developer. Mediagenic struggled to stay afloat, but a change in ownership and management in 1990 signaled a dramatic turnaround. The company renamed itself Activision in 1992, and it spent the next few years building on the successes of its past, releasing titles such as Return to Zork (1993), a graphic adventure based on a classic Infocom game, and Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (1994), an addictive platform game.

Activision acquired a new generation of talented designers, and it won critical acclaim with PC offerings like Interstate ’76 (1997), a stylish, funk-infused, 3D vehicle combat game that anticipated such later titles as Grand Theft Auto from Rockstar Games. The company also forged lucrative partnerships with independent developers. Although development costs for new games soared—a typical game cost millions of dollars to bring to market—Activision continued to post profits through the late 1990s and early 2000s. Activision and developer Infinity Ward launched the Call of Duty franchise in 2003, and the game immediately challenged Electronic Arts’ Medal of Honor series for supremacy of the first-person shooter market. Activision joined developers RedOctane and Harmonix Music Systems for the sequels to Guitar Hero (2005), a rhythm-based game that became a popular culture phemonenon. While future development of Guitar Hero titles was halted in 2011, other Activision properties remained strong. Call of Duty consistently ranked as one of the most lucrative franchises in electronic gaming, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon remained popular platform titles, and a remastered Tony Hawk Pro Skater added new life to the venerable skateboarding series.