Activision

Overview

In 1979, four Atari programmers did something unprecedented: they quit and started their own company to publish games for Atari’s console. Atari sued. Activision won. The victory established that anyone could make games for any platform—creating the third-party publishing model that still defines the industry.

Fast facts

Founded: October 1979 by David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead.
The grievance: Atari refused to credit programmers; top talent earned no royalties.
First releases: Dragster, Fishing Derby, Checkers, Boxing (1980).
Breakthrough: Pitfall! (1982) sold over 4 million copies.
Legal victory: Atari’s lawsuit failed; third-party publishing became legal precedent.
Modern form: merged with Blizzard (2008); acquired by Microsoft (2023).

The rebellion

Atari treated programmers as anonymous labour:

Games shipped without credits
No royalties regardless of sales
Warren Robinett hid his name in Adventure as protest
Top programmers generated millions but earned salaries

David Crane, whose games sold $20 million, received a $22,000 salary. When management sent a memo calling programmers “towel designers” (interchangeable commodity workers), the founders had enough.

The founding four

Each brought proven talent:

David Crane: Pitfall!, A Boy and His Blob, dozens of hits.
Larry Kaplan: Kaboom!, Air-Sea Battle systems.
Alan Miller: Robot Tank, Ice Hockey.
Bob Whitehead: Chopper Command, Stampede.

They knew how to make games. They just needed to sell them.

The lawsuit

Atari sued immediately:

Claimed trade secret theft
Sought to block Activision games
Lost on all counts
Established legal precedent: console makers couldn’t lock out competitors

The victory opened the floodgates. Dozens of publishers followed. Not all maintained Activision’s quality—contributing to the 1983 crash.

Pitfall!

David Crane’s Pitfall! became Activision’s defining moment:

Smooth animation unprecedented on 2600
255 screens of jungle exploration
20-minute time limit encouraged mastery
Over 4 million copies sold
Proved third-party games could be best-in-class

The home computer years

As consoles crashed, Activision pivoted:

Published for C64, Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST
Little Computer People, Ghostbusters, Hacker
Maintained quality reputation through the 8-bit era
Transitioned to 16-bit and PC as markets shifted

Legacy

Activision proved programmers had value. Their rebellion created the third-party ecosystem. Every independent developer owes something to those four programmers who walked out of Atari with nothing but their talent and won.

The first third-party publisher