Activision is known in the United States as the first "third-party" developer, getting its nose in the video game industry with games for the Atari 2600, and co-founded by four former Atari designers (David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Bob Whitehead and Alan Miller) on October 1, 1979. Against Atari's publishing policies at the time, Activision was the first studio to allow programmers to take credit for the games they designed.
Unlike many other companies developing games for second-generation consoles, Activision survived The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 intact, being quick to jump on the Commodore 64 bandwagon, and even added to its catalog several games from defunct competitor Imagic, whose advertising Tagline for their games was "Designed By Experts For Experts". Activision acquired Infocom in 1986. In 1988, Activision renamed itself to Mediagenic but by 1991 it reverted to its original name after a buyout by a group led by Bobby Kotick.
In 2007, Activision merged with Vivendi Games (who owned Sierra and Blizzard Entertainment at the time), to become Activision Blizzard, the single largest third-party game developer in the United States, surpassing Electronic Arts. Vivendi Games was previously Vivendi Universal Games, as Vivendi was the parent company of Universal from 2000 to 2003 and retained the "Universal" part well into 2006note .
Today, the company is best known for being the publisher of the Call of Duty series, kicking off the late 2000s music game fad with the Guitar Hero seriesnote and for its controversial business practices, especially concerning the contractual dispute with Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward following the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, which saw more than half of the developer's staff leaving. In 2021, parent company Activision Blizzard became the subject of a huge scandal following a lawsuit filed by the DFEH (California Department of Fair Employment and Housing) that revealed a toxic culture across both Activision and Blizzard that had existed for many years, where many employees were paid minimum wages and female employees were subjected to regular sexual harassment by male employees, all with full knowledge of leadership who defended the perpetrators and retaliated against victims of harassment if they complained. The knowledge revealed by this lawsuit resulted in the company's reputation being irreparably damaged.
In January 2022, Microsoft announced that it would acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in the wake of the DFEH's lawsuit, which will (ironically given their origins) make Activision a first-party developer for a console manufacturer. After a lengthy 20 months of getting legal approvals throughout the world, the deal was closed on October 13th, 2023 a few hours after Britain's Competition Markets Authority approved the deal.
Later on January 25th, 2024, Microsoft layed off 1,900 workers from their gaming divisions with many of Activision Blizzard's companies, specifically Blizzard Entertainment, being the most affected by it while Activision studio Toys For Bob closed it's office while it's workers transitioned to working from home. When the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Microsoft for the layoffs running against what they had said regarding the acquisition, Microsoft stated that the layoffs had nothing to do with the acquisition and were already planned to happen before it was acquired. However, Toys for Bob split from Activision on February 29th of that year.
Pre-crash Activision games:
- Apocalypse
- Beamrider
- Boxing
- Checkers
- Chase the Express
- Chopper Command
- Crackpots
- Decathlon
- Dragster
- The Dreadnaught Factor
- Enduro
- Freeway
- Frostbite
- Ghostbusters
- Grand Prix
- Hacker
- Happy Trails
- H.E.R.O.
- Ice Hockey
- Kaboom!
- Keystone Kapers
- Laser Blast
- Megamania
- Oink!
- Pitfall!
- Plaque Attack
- Pressure Cooker
- River Raid
- Robot Tank
- Spider Fighter
- Stampede
- Starmaster
- Tennis
- Worm Whomper
- X-Kaliber 2097
Pre-crash Imagic games:
Post-crash Activision games:
- Alter Ego (1986)
- Angry Birds
- Battlezone (the 1998 FPS/RTS hybrid and its sequel)
- Blue Stinger
- Blur (2010)
- Call of Duty
- Civilization: Call to Power
- Dark Reign
- Dragon Breed
- Empires: Dawn of the Modern World
- Guitar Hero (acquired original publisher RedOctane)
- Gun
- Interstate '76
- Jurassic: The Hunted
- Kelly Slaters Pro Surfer
- Little Computer People
- Lost Kingdoms (developed by FromSoftware)
- MechWarrior (Just the first two games; they lost the Battletech license after that.)
- Moshi Monsters
- Moxie Girlz
- NASCAR The Game (2011 and Inside Line only; they lost the license for NASCAR '14)
- Pinkalicious
- Radical Rex
- Sea World Adventure Parks Tycoon
- * Secret Service
- Shanghai
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
- SiN
- SiN (1998)
- Soldier of Fortune
- Spanish for Everyone!
- Spycraft: The Great Game
- Super Pitfall
- Sword Master
- Teen Digital Diva (developed by Girl Games)
- Teen Digital Diva II (also developed by Girl Games)
- The Three Stooges (NES version of the Cinemaware PC Game)
- Tombs & Treasure (published under the Infocom imprint, but not developed by the original Infocom company)
- Time Commando
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
- True Crime: Streets of LA
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
- Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption
- Vigilante 8
- The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
- White Night
- Wolfenstein:
- Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions (published outside Japan)
- XiaXia
- The graphical Zork games
Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi/Universal properties:
Blizzard properties:
- Diablo series
- StarCraft series
- Warcraft franchise
- Heroes of the Storm
- Overwatch
Licensed Games
- Barbie (including Barbie Horse Adventures, The Barbie Diaries: High School Mystery, Barbie & the Three Musketeers and Barbie as the Island Princess)
- Games based on movies from Disney (including Tarzan, Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph)
- Toy Story 2 (1999)
- The Lion King: Simba's Mighty Adventure (2000)
- Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure (2003)
- Games based on movies from Dreamworks Animation films (2004-2011)
- Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse
- James Bond:
- Heavy Gear
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
- Activision once explicitly held licences to produce Marvel games based on both the X-Men and Spider-Man comics & films, Ultimate Alliance being an odd one out as it involves the general Marvel Universe. This did not prevent Spidey and the mutants from appearing in other games, however.
- The Amazing Spider-Man
- Blade 2000
- Deadpool (2013)
- Fantastic Four Duology
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance
- Spider-Man (2000)
- Spider-Man 2 – Enter: Electro
- Spider-Man 2: The Sinister Six
- Spider-Man: Mysterio's Menace
- Spider-Man: Friend or Foe
- Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
- Spider-Man: Edge of Time
- Spider-Man Trilogy
- Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
- Ultimate Spider-Man (2005)
- X2: Wolverine's Revenge
- X-Men: Destiny
- X-Men Legends
- X-Men: Mutant Academy
- X-Men: Next Dimension
- X-Men: The Official Game
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine
- Muppet Treasure Island
- Games based on Nickelodeon properties (2013-2017)
- The Simpsons Wrestling
- Star Trek: Armada
- Star Trek: Elite Force
- Star Wars: Dark Forces Saga:
- The Peanuts Movie: Snoopy's Grand Adventure
- The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
- Transformers (2007-2017):