Activision, Inc. () is very first the developer and distributer of video games for the Ordinateur S and the consoles. Founded on October 1st 1979, its first products are cartridges for the Atari 2600. In 2005, Activision is one of the largest companies of development of video games in the world, only preceded by Electronic Arts. It should be noted that at the time of first half of the year of the year 2007, Activision détrône Electronic Arts and then becomes the world leader of the video game in term of sales turnover (288 d'€ million for Activision against 266 for Electronic Arts). December 2nd, 2007, Vivendi repurchases Activision and devien then Activision Blizzard .

History

Before the creation of Activision, the video games were developed exclusively by the manufacturers of the consoles on which the plays were intended. For example, Atari was the only editor of plays for the Atari 2600. This way of doing was particularly irritating for the developers of plays since they did not receive any remuneration for the plays having had a minimum of success and were not even mentioned for their work in the directions for use. Following the change of certain plays in successes having paid several million dollars, several Programmeur S decided that they had enough and left their company of it.

Activision was the first third editor for the 2600. The company was founded by Jim Levy, former director of the music industry and by the former programmers of Atari David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead.

Atari did not mention its programmers when it published plays what was the primary reason of the departure of the developers. Levy took the practice to promote at the same time the plays and the creators.

The departure of the four programmers, who in addition conceived more half of the plays sold by Atari, caused a Legal action between the two companies which was finally solved only in 1982. While the market of the video game started to decline, Activision extended its activities, producing titles of plays for the consoles as well as for the personal computers in parallel with the acquisition of small editors.

In 1982, Activision left Pitfall! , which is regarded as the first Jeu of platform in addition to being the title more sold on the 2600. Although the technical prowesses of the team were already shown, it is thanks to Pitfall! that they acquired a certain notoriety. Instigator of the plays of arcade, this success videoludic was many times copied by a multitude of clones. Nevertheless, the greatest characteristic of this play is to have created the " kind; punt-forme" who became, during the Années 1980, an immensely popular kind.

In 1985, Activision was amalgamated with Infocom, the pioneer as regards Jeu of adventure. Jim Levy was a large admiror of the titles of Infocom and wanted that this company remains solvent, because this one drew the devil by the tail. However, approximately six months after their " mariage" , Bruce Davis taken the changing of Activision as a chairman. Having always been against this fusion since the beginning, Davis was the principal decision maker in the management of Infocom. He insisted that this company changes its marketing policies what had as a consequence a dramatic decrease of the sales of their plays. Finally in 1989, after several years of losses, Activision closed the studios of Infocom of Cambridge, Massachusetts relocating only 11 of the 26 employees in the new general headquarters of Activision with Silicon Valley. However, only five employees accepted.

In 1988, Activision started to imply other types of Logiciel apart from the video games such as the applications of businesses. Consequently, Activision changed its corporative name for Mediagenic with an aim of having a name which would represent better all its branches of industry. Many people believe that Mediagenic is a company which bought Activision, but actually it is only one different name for the formerly called company Activision. Since this change, Mediagenic continued to largely use the name the Activision mark in its video games for the many systems on which they were published, particularly on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, the Atari 7800, Commodore 64 and Amiga. The decision of the company to extend its spheres of activities apart from its field of predilection, the video games, proved to be a bad decision since in 1992, Mediagenic was reproduced in chapter 11 of the law concerning protection on the Faillite. The time of first Activision was completed.

New Activision

The failure of Mediagenic had as a consequence a reorganization and a fusion with The Disc Company where Mediagenic was still the purchaser. Following this Bankruptcy, Mediagenic changed officially its name to return to its very first, Activision, in the state of Delaware during the month of December 1992. Activision decided to leave Silicon Valley for the California of the south. While it hardly started to recover from its bankruptcy, Activision continued to develop plays for PC and the game consoles video while making strategic acquisitions. Activision then decided to concentrate only on the world videoludic.

In 1991, Activision off compiled 20 of the old plays of Infocom in a collection on cédérom entitled The Lost Treasures Infocom . The success of this compilation carried out, in 1992, with the launching of 11 additional titles in The Lost Treasures off Infocom II .

In 2003, Activision was the object of an investigation by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, like several other editors of plays, for its practices of doubtful accountancy in order to reduce its quarterly results allegedly.

In 2004, the company celebrated its 25e birthday of foundation and declared a Revenu record in addition to one twelfth consecutive year of growth of sound Turnover.

Repurchase by Vivendi Ranges

December 2nd, 2007, Vivendi announces to take 52% of the capital of Activision, by a contribution of Vivendi Games and of treasury is a transaction of 18,9 billion dollars. The unit should be called Activision Blizzard . (Blizzard being the main component of Vivendi Ranges)

To note

During second half of the years 1980, certain plays published by the company on Micro-ordinateur S left under the labels edition “Electric Dreams Software”, “Gamestar” and “Triple Six”.

List principal plays

Complete listing for Atari 2600

  • AtariAge

External bonds

  • official Web site of Activision

; Studios of development

  • Beenox Studios Studio located at Quebec
  • Infinity Ward
  • Luxoflux Corp.
  • Neversoft Entertainment
  • Raven Software
  • Shaba Ranges
  • Toys for Bob
  • Treyarch
  • Vicarious Visions
  • The Whole Experiment
  • Ltd Z-Axis.

The current list of the developers of Activision can be consulted here.

Random links:Vietnamese Quoted-Readable | Ricotta | Colombey-the-beautiful | Battle of the course Matapan | William Cobbett