The company began developing games in a manner that it allowed for game console platform independence eventually benefiting the end user. This breakthrough company made its debut in 1979 under the vision of founders Alan Miller and David Crane. The two were employees of Atari prior to starting their own company. The move from Atari was instigated by a management issue which resulted into their forming of Activision. Upon establishment of the company, Larry Kaplan and Bob Whitehead (both from Atari also) followed Miller and Crane to formally create the core group of Activision.

Checkers, Fishing Derby, Boxing, and Dragster formed the initial batch of games released by the company in 1980. These games became immediate hit in the market and signaled the impact the company has made to the computer gaming industry. The following year saw the introduction of more high quality computer games under the titles Ice Hockey, Stampede, Kaboom!, and Freeway.

By 1982, the company launched the game Pitfall! which dictated the standard by which future game developments would be measured against. This game also represented the very first computer game to feature a person as the main character as compared to previous genres wherein objects like helicopters, planes, and cars were the focus. In 1984, the video game market was slowly losing ground. Activision survived this debacle by successfully diversifying into the PC computer game market. During the year, the company launched Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns along with Ghostbusters in a video console and personal computer platform.

For the PC platform, the games ran in Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and Apple computer systems. The lowest point perhaps for the company came when its two co-founders left the company in favor of other computer game development companies.

The big comeback of Activision was made in 1994 with the market introduction of groundbreaking games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Spycraft: The Great Game, Interstate ’76, Mechwarrior 2, Return of Zork, and Quake II.

In 2001, the company hit a new milestone with the introduction of the Tony Hawk’s ProSkater 2 which was critically acclaimed in the computer gaming world. This led to the development of more sports related games wherein Activision signed the best and the brightest in the sporting world to endorse their sports theme computer games. The company capitalized on the popularity of wake boarding, snow boarding, and ramp biking sports. The best in these aspects of extreme sports endorsed the games developed by Activision. From that point on, things have never been better for the computer game developer company. It initiated partnerships with major companies like Dreamworks, LucasArts, Disney, and Marvel Comics among others for the development of third party gaming applications for the new generation of video game consoles including the Sony Playstation.

In what is viewed as a wise corporate move, the company partnered with Vivendi to fill the gap in its role playing and real-time strategy gaming area which Vivendi had ample supply of. The company now formally functions under the name of Activision Blizzard.

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