Activision is an American video game developer A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Sony's PlayStation 3, PSP, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii, Nintendo DS, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers and publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer, majority owned by French conglomerate A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses together into one corporate structure, usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company. Conglomerates are often large[citation needed]and often multinational.[citation needed] Vivendi SA Vivendi SA is a French international media conglomerate with activities in music, television and film, publishing, telecommunications, the Internet, and video games. It is headquartered in Paris. Its current CEO and president is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979^[2] and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game", it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to for gaming consoles A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game. The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in. The first game console to use this format was the Fairchild Channel F; however, the Atari 260 video console system published from July 1980 for the US market and from August 1981 for the international market (UK)^[3]. Activision is now one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world and was also the top publisher for 2007 in the United States.^[4] On January 18, 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group The NPD Group, Inc. is a leading North American market research company founded in 1967 and provides consumer and retail information to manufacturers and retailers. Using actual sales data from retailers and distributors as well as consumer-reported purchasing behavior, NPD offers consumer panel and retail sales tracking services, special reports,.^[5]

On December 2, 2007, it was announced that Activision would be acquired by Vivendi Vivendi SA is a French international media conglomerate with activities in music, television and film, publishing, telecommunications, the Internet, and video games. It is headquartered in Paris, with Vivendi contributing its gaming division plus cash, in exchange for a majority stake in the new group. The merger between Activision and Vivendi Games took place on July 9, 2008, with the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc., formerly Activision, Inc. is the American holding company for Activision and Blizzard Entertainment, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. The company is the result of a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games, announced on December 2, 2007, in a deal worth USD$18.8 billion. The deal closed July 9, 2008.^[6] Activision will still exist as a subsidiary owned by Activision Blizzard, and it will still develop and publish games such as Call of Duty Call of Duty is a first person and third-person shooter video game series franchise. The series began on the PC, and later expanded to consoles and handhelds, and several spin-off games have also been released alongside the main series. The majority of the games in the series have been set primarily in World War II, with the exception of Call of, and Guitar Hero The Guitar Hero series is a series of music video games first published in 2005 by RedOctane and distributed by Activision in which players use a guitar-shaped peripheral to simulate the playing of lead, bass guitar and rhythm guitar across numerous rock music songs. Players match notes that scroll on-screen to colored fret buttons on the, along with some of Vivendi's owned IPs Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which property rights are recognised--and the corresponding fields of law. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries, such as the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro The Dragon series.^{[clarification needed]} As of June 15, 2010, Activision and Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation based in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800,, specifically the Interactive Entertainment division, have an exclusive multiyear agreement; Don Mattrick announced this on June 14, 2010 during Microsoft's 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo The Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly known as E3, is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association . It is used by many video game developers to show off their upcoming games and game-related hardware conference.^[7]

History

Before the formation of Activision, software for video game consoles A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game. The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed. For example, Atari Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari SA was the only publisher of games for the Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in. The first game console to use this format was the Fairchild Channel F; however, the Atari 260. This was particularly galling to the developers of the games, as they received no financial rewards for games that sold well, and did not receive credit for their games. This caused several programmers to resign from their jobs. Activision became the first third-party game publisher for game consoles.^[8]

The company was founded by former music industry executive Jim Levy, venture capitalist Richard Muchmore, and former Atari programmers A game programmer is a software engineer and programmer who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines each of which is regarded as "game programmers". A game programmer should not be confused with a game designer, who works on game David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. Atari's company policy at the time was not to credit game creators for their individual contributions; Levy took the approach of crediting and promoting game creators along with the games themselves. The steps taken for this included devoting a page to the developer in their instruction manuals^[9][10][11] and challenging players to send in a high score (usually as a photograph, but sometimes as a letter) in order to receive an embroidered patch An embroidered patch is an embroidered design on firm backing that is applied to clothing by organizations to distinguish membership or rank, youth groups to mark accomplishments and individuals for art or expression.^{[12][13][14][15]} These approaches helped the newly formed company attract experienced talent. Crane, Kaplan, Levy, Miller, and Whitehead received the Game Developers Choice "First Penguin" award in 2003, in recognition of this step.

The departure of the four programmers, whose titles made up more than half of Atari's cartridge sales at the time, caused legal action between the two companies which were not settled until 1982. As the market for game consoles started to decline, Activision branched out, producing game titles for home computers and acquiring smaller publishers.

In 1982, Activision released Pitfall!, which is considered by many to be the first platform game The platform game is a video game genre characterized by jumping to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles (jumping puzzles). It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps. The most common unifying element to these games is a jump button; other jump mechanics include swinging from extendable arms, as^{[citation needed]} as well as a best selling title on the Atari 2600. Pitfall! was a huge success for the company and the developers. Due to this success, many clones of the game were introduced, including stand-up arcade games An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, public houses, and video arcades. Most arcade games are redemption games, merchandisers , video games, or pinball machines. This also launched the entire platform genre which became a major part of video games through the 1980s.

On June 13, 1986, Activision merged with struggling text adventure Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire pioneer Infocom Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone. Infocom was founded on June 22, 1979 by MIT staff and students led by Dave Lebling, Marc Blank, Albert Vezza, and Joel Berez and. Jim Levy was a big fan of Infocom's titles and wanted Infocom to remain solvent. About six months after the "InfoWedding", Bruce Davis took over as CEO A chief executive officer or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer (executive) or administrator in charge of total management of an organization. An individual appointed as CEO of a corporation, company, organization, or agency reports to the board of directors of Activision. Davis was against the merger from the start and was heavy-handed in its management. Eventually in 1989, after several years of losses, Activision closed down the Infocom studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, a nexus of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Notably, Cambridge is home to two internationally prominent universities, Harvard University and the Massachusetts, extending to only 11 of the 26 employees an offer to relocate to Activision's headquarters in Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, HP, Intel, Cisco, eBay, Adobe, Agilent, Oracle, Yahoo, Netflix, and EA. The term originally referred to the region's large number of. Five of them accepted this offer.^[16]

In 1988, Activision started to get involved in other types of software Computer software, or just software, is a general term primarily used for digitally stored data such as computer programs and other kinds of information read and written by computers. Today, this includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes and records. The term was coined in order to contrast to the besides video games, such as business applications. As a result, Activision changed its corporate name to Mediagenic in order to have a name that would globally represent all its fields of activities. Under the Mediagenic holding company, Activision continued to publish video games for various platforms notably the Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe and Australia in 1985. In most of Asia, including Japan (where it was first launched in 1983), China, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines, it was released as the Family Computer (ファミリーコンピュータ?), commonly, the Sega Master System The Sega Master System (abbreviated to SMS or Master System jap. マスターシステム is a third-generation 8-bit cartridge-based video game console, that was manufactured and released by Sega 1986 in North America, seven months after the original NES and in 1987 in Europe. Its original Japanese incarnation was the "Sega Mark III",, the Atari 7800, Atari ST The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals, Commodore 64 The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982. Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US $595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore MAX Machine, the C64 features 64 kilobytes of memory with sound and graphics and Amiga The Amiga is a family of personal computers, beginning with Commodore company's 16-bit generation home computer. The first model appeared in 1985 as a high-end product with graphical, audio and multitasking capacities ahead of its time. The most popular model, Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 and became the leading home computer of the late 1980s.

New Activision

Following a multi-million judgment on damages in a patent infringement suit where infringement had been determined many years prior during the Levy era, a financially weakened Mediagenic was taken over by an investor group lead by Robert Kotick. After taking over the company, the new management filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization. In the reorganization, they merged Mediagenic with The Disc Company. While emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic continued to develop games for PCs IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to legally reverse engineer the BIOS through clean room and video game consoles A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game. The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal, and resumed making strategic acquisitions. After emerging from bankruptcy, Mediagenic officially changed its entity name back to Activision on December 1992 and became a Delaware Corporation The Delaware General Corporation Law is the statute governing corporate law in the state of Delaware. Delaware is well known as a corporate haven. Over 50% of U.S. publicly-traded corporations and 60% of the Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in that state (it was previously a California Corporation). At that point Activision moved its headquarters from Mountain View Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The city shares its borders with the cities of Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Sunnyvale, as well as Moffett Federal Airfield and the San Francisco Bay. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 70,708 in the Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, HP, Intel, Cisco, eBay, Adobe, Agilent, Oracle, Yahoo, Netflix, and EA. The term originally referred to the region's large number of to Santa Monica Santa Monica is a city in western Los Angeles County, California, USA. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and Venice on the southeast in Southern California Southern California is the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Though there is no official definition for the northern boundary of Southern California, most definitions in use include all the land south of the Tehachapi Mountains, located about 70 miles (113 km) north of Los Angeles. Southern California can be divided into Greater Los. Activision chose from then on to only concentrate on video gaming and nothing else.

In 1991, Activision packaged 20 of Infocom's past games into a CD-ROM CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback, the 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data collection called The Lost Treasures of Infocom without the feelies Infocom was famous for. The success of this compilation led to the 1992 release of 11 more Infocom titles in The Lost Treasures of Infocom II.

Activision published the first-person perspective MechWarrior in 1989, based on FASA FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games, wargames and boardgames between 1980 and 2001. Originally the name FASA was an acronym for "Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration", a joking allusion to the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup. This tongue-in-cheek attitude was carried over in humorous self-references's pen-and-pencil game BattleTech BattleTech is a wargaming and science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2000, and owned since 2003 by Topps. The series began with FASA's debut of the board game BattleTech by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III and has since grown to include numerous expansions to the original game, several computer. Activision released the sequel, MechWarrior 2, in 1995 after two years of delays and internal struggles. Because of these delays, FASA decided against renewing their licensing deal with Activision. To counter, Activision released several more games bearing the MechWarrior 2 name, which didn't violate their licensing agreement. These included NetMech, MechWarrior 2: Ghost Bears Legacy and MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. The entire MechWarrior 2 series of games accounted for more than $70 million dollars in sales.^[17]

Activision procured the license to another pen-and-paper-based war-game, Heavy Gear, in 1997. It was well received by critics, with an 81.46% average rating on gamerankings.com[4] 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 finally 1998's Battlezone.^[18]

Acquisitions and partnerships

Merger with Vivendi

In December 2007, it was announced that Activision would merge with Vivendi Games which owns fellow games developer and publisher Blizzard, and the merger would later close in July 2008. The new company is called Activision Blizzard and is headed by Activision's former CEO, Robert Kotick. Vivendi is the biggest shareholder in the new group.^[25] The new company is estimated to be worth $18.9 billion, ahead of Electronic Arts who is valued at $14.1 billion.^[26]

Post-merger developments

Sledgehammer Games was founded on November 17, 2009 by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey,^[27] who left Electronic Arts subsidiary Visceral Games.^[28][29][30]

The Sledgehammer Games micro site went live on December 8, 2009 with information on the studio development team, location, and current job openings are now available. Speculation on the studio's next game has been offered by industry sites Kotaku and Gamasutra ^[31]. The studio's first game will be a first-person shooter in the Call of Duty series, which was revealed on their website^[32] on June 19, 2010.

Studios

Current

• 7 Studios in West Los Angeles, California, Salt Lake City, Utah and Taipei, Taiwan, founded in 1999, acquired on April 6, 2009.
• Beenox in Quebec City, Canada, founded in May 2000, acquired on May 25, 2005.
• Bizarre Creations in Liverpool, England, founded as Raising Hell Productions in 1987 and changed name in 1994, acquired on September 26, 2007.^[33]
• Budcat Creations in Las Vegas, Nevada, founded September 2000, acquired on November 10, 2008.
• DemonWare in both Dublin, Republic of Ireland and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, founded in 2003, acquired on May 2007.
• FreeStyleGames in Leamington, England, United Kingdom, founded in 2002, acquired September 12, 2008.
• High Moon Studios in San Diego, California, founded as Sammy Entertainment in April 2001, acquired by Vivendi Games in January 2006.
• Infinity Ward in Encino, California, found in 2002, acquired in October 2003
• Neversoft in Los Angeles, California, founded in July 1994, acquired October 1999.
• Radical Entertainment in Vancouver, Canada, founded in 1991, acquired in 2005.
• Raven Software in Madison, Wisconsin, founded in 1990, acquired in 1997.
• Sledgehammer Games in Foster City, California, founded November 17, 2009
• Toys For Bob in Novato, California, founded in 1989, acquired May 3, 2005.
• Treyarch in Santa Monica, California, founded in 1996, acquired 2001.
• Vicarious Visions in Albany, New York, founded in 1990, acquired January 2005.

Defunct

• Gray Matter Interactive in Southern California, founded in the 1990s as Xatrix Entertainment, acquired January 2002, merged into Treyarch in 2005.
• Infocom in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded on June 22, 1979, acquired in 1986, closed in 1989.
• Luxoflux in Santa Monica, California, founded in January 1997, acquired October 2002, closed February 11, 2010 ^[34]
• Shaba Games in San Francisco, California, founded in September 1997, acquired in 2002, and closed on October 8, 2009^[35][36].
• RedOctane in Mountain View, California, founded November 2005, acquired in 2006, closed February 11, 2010.^[37]
• Sierra Entertainment in Los Angeles, California, founded in 1979 as On-line Systems, acquired from the merger with Vivendi Games, closed in 2008
• Underground Development in Foster City, California, founded as Z-Axis in 1994, acquired in May 2002, closed February 11, 2010.^[37]

Sold

• Wanako Studios in New York, New York, founded in 2005, acquired by Vivendi Games on February 20, 2007, sold to Artificial Mind and Movement on November 20, 2008.
• Swordfish Studios in Birmingham, England, founded in September 2002, acquired by Vivendi Universal Games in June 2005, sold to Codemasters on November 14, 2008.
• Massive Entertainment in Malmö, Sweden, founded in 1987, acquired by Vivendi Universal Games in 2002, sold to Ubisoft on November 10, 2008.

Notable games published

1980s

• Fishing Derby (1980)
• Skiing (1980)
• Freeway (1981)
• Ice Hockey (1981)
• Kaboom! (1981)
• Stampede (1981)
• Barnstorming (1982)
• Pitfall! (1982)
• River Raid (1982)
• Robot Tank (1983)
• H.E.R.O. (1984)

1990s

• MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat (1995)
• The Quake series (with the exception of the first version of Quake)
• Interstate '76 (1997)
• Battlezone (1998)
• Civilization: Call to Power (1999)
• Tony Hawk series (1999-)

2000s

• Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force (2000)
• Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX (2001)
• Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002)
• Spider-Man movie series (2002–)
• Star Trek: Bridge Commander (2002)
• Star Trek: Starfleet Command III (2002)
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003)
• True Crime: Streets of LA (2003)
• Call of Duty series (2003–)
• Doom 3 (2004)
• True Crime: New York City (2005)
• Guitar Hero series (2006–) (with some exceptions)
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (2006)
• Crash: Mind over Mutant (2008)
• Prototype (2009)
• Wolfenstein (2009)
• DJ Hero (2009)
• Blur (2010)
• Singularity (2010)
• Transformers: War for Cybertron (2010)

Upcoming games

2010

• Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC, DS)
• GoldenEye 007 (Wii, DS)
• Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)
• James Bond 007: Blood Stone (PS3, Xbox 360, PC, DS)
• Monster Jam 2011 (PS3, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii, DS)
• Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS)
• True Crime: Hong Kong (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

References

1. ^ Activision 2008 Annual Report
2. ^ Activision - Investor Relations: Historical Timeline from Activision's official website
3. ^ http://www.atarimania.de/zoom_frame.php?TYPE_IMG=CAT&ID=142&NUM_IMAGE=0
4. ^ "Activision Beats EA As Top Third Party Publisher In U.S.". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14803. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
5. ^ Video Game News, Video Game Coverage, Video Game Updates, PC Game News, PC Game Coverage - GameDaily
6. ^ Regarding Vivendi - Activision merger and expectations
7. ^ Call of Duty Black Ops demonstration at Microsoft E3 2010 - YouTube (IGN)
8. ^ "Classic Gaming Expo Distinguished Guest: Alan Miller". Classic Gaming Expo. http://www.cgexpo.com/bios/amiller.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
9. ^ Ice Hockey Instructions, page 4. Activision 1981
10. ^ Pitfall! Instructions, page 4. Activision 1982
11. ^ Chopper Command Instructions, page 4. Activision 1982
12. ^ Ice Hockey instructions, page 3. Activision 1981
13. ^ Pitfall! Instructions, page 3. Activision, 1982
14. ^ Chopper Command Instructions, page 3. Activision 1982
15. ^ Chopper Command patch on eBay
16. ^ Down From the Top of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc. report from MIT
17. ^ MechWarrior History
18. ^ Mechwarrior History
19. ^ iTZKooPA (2007-08-22). "Activision Dates 'Call of Duty 4'; Drops Word on Bond Title". Totalgaming.net. http://tgnforums.stardock.com/index.aspx?AID=160877. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
20. ^ http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/activision-confirms-demonware-acquisition
21. ^ http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/080710.html
22. ^ Bramwell, Tom (2008-10-28). "Activision man confirms DJ Hero". Eurogamer (Eurogamer Network). http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=270351. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
23. ^ "Activision Blizzard Announces Better-Than-Expected Second Quarter CY 2009 Financial Results". Activision. 2009-08-15. http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=401548.
24. ^ Halo Developer Joins Forces With Activision
25. ^ Activision, Vivendi (2007-12-02). "Vivendi and Activision to create Activision Blizzard – World’s Largest, Most Profitable Pure-Play Video Game Publisher". Press release. http://www.activisionblizzard.com/pressReleases/pr120207.php. Retrieved 2007-12-02.
26. ^ Activision-Vivendi to Shake Up Games Biz
27. ^ "Michael Condrey". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,27510/. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
28. ^ "News: Activision cracks EA with Sledgehammer". ComputerAndVideoGames.com. 2009-11-18. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=227584. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
29. ^ "Activision Publishing Hires Industry Veterans Glen A. Schofield and Michael Condrey to Lead Sledgehammer Games - Yahoo! Finance". Finance.yahoo.com. 2009-11-17. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Activision-Publishing-Hires-prnews-89762338.html?x=0&.v=1. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
30. ^ Andy Chalk posted on 18 Nov 2009 16:02 (2009-11-18). "The Escapist : News : EA Vets Launch New Activision Studio". Escapistmagazine.com. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96205-EA-Vets-Launch-New-Activision-Studio. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
31. ^ "Sledgehammer Games Goes Online, Needs Help - Sledgehammer games". Kotaku. 2009-12-08. http://kotaku.com/5421701/sledgehammer-games-goes-online-needs-help. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
32. ^ "Sledgehammer Games working on new Call of Duty". Extra Guy. 2010-06-19. http://www.extraguy.com/2010/06/sledgehammer-games-working-on-new-call-of-duty/. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
33. ^ Activision Acquires U.K. Game Developer Bizarre Creations from Activision's website
34. ^ "Activision lays off about 200 employees, shuts down Santa Monica studio Luxoflux". Los Angeles Times. February 11, 2010. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/activision-lays-off-200-shuts-luxoflux.html. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
35. ^ Activision Lays Off Shaba's Ranks, Closes Studio (Update)
36. ^ http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/activision-confirms-shaba-studios-closure
37. ^ ^{a b} Activision Shutters Guitar Hero Creators, GH: Van Halen Developers (Update)

External links

• Activision - the official homepage
• Activision Publishing, Inc. at MobyGames
• Activision at World of Spectrum

Development studios

• Activision's current list of developers
• Beenox Studios
• High Moon Studios
• Neversoft Entertainment
• Radical Entertainment
• Raven Software
• Sledgehammer Games
• Toys for Bob
• Treyarch
• Vicarious Visions
• MobileGamesDB profile on MGDB (Open mobile game database)

Categories: Activision | Video game companies of the United States | Companies based in Los Angeles County, California | Companies established in 1979 | Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences members | Video game developers

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