Activision Publish, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products for various consoles, handheld platforms and the PC. Activision’s roots go back to the late 1970’s while four of their founders worked for Atari.

The programmers at Atari became disgruntled with the company for not crediting game developers or compensating them for games that sold well. Many of Atari’s programmers decided to leave the company to form their own independent software companies. Four of Atari’s top programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead left Atari in late 1979 to form their own software company. On October 1st, 1979 Activision was founded by Jim Levy, Richard Muchmore and the four ex-Atari programmers.