Activision

Activision
Founded	October 1, 1979
Headquarters	Santa Monica, California, United States
Website	http://www.activision.com
Other Names	Activision Japan Mediagenic Infocom Activision Value Publishing

Activision was founded by former Atari programmers who wanted to be treated better for designing games. The company began producing console games for the Atari 2600. In July 9, 2008, Activision was acquired by Vivendi Games and was renamed to Activision Blizzard. The name was chosen to show up higher on a list of game developers over Atari.

The company also had a Japanese division to publish games in Japan. It was simply called Activision Japan (アクティビジョン・ジャパン株式会社).

Games

• Games developed by Activision.
• Games published by Activision.

Music Development

Commodore 64

Most of the time, Activision used its own sound programmers.

DOS

Glyn Anderson and Michael Latham programmed OmniMusic. The driver appears to be MIDI-based, based on the off-timing of notes in various songs.

NES

For Activision's NES development, Glyn Anderson created a sound driver that used many various instruments extracted from various files. Russell Lieblich, Matthew Berardo, Pete Mokris and Richard Miles Boogar are the ones who carried Glyn Anderson's sound driver.

SNES

The only game Activision developed for the SNES was Pitfall: The Mayan Adventures, which composed by Soundelux. This game uses Sculptured Software's Berlioz sound driver (Steve Aguirre's variation).

GEN

Slaughter Sport uses a custom sound engine, which possibly programmed by Glyn Anderson or Pete Mokris. It can also be Artech Studios' SEGA Music Development System according to similar music instruments with GEMS.

On Pitfall: The Mayan Adventures, audio was outsourced to Krisalis Software. Matt Furniss wrote music using Shaun Hollingworth's music tracker for Atari Mega ST and converted his music files to sound driver by same programmer.

Audio Personnel

These composers, sound designers and arrangers worked at Activision:

• Alex DeMeo - Sound programmer.
• David Crane - Sound programmer.
• Glyn Anderson - Sound programmer.
• Mark Van Hecke
• Matthew Berardo
• Pete Mokris
• Richard Miles Boogar
• Russell Lieblich
• Stuart E. Ross - Sound programmer.

Links

• mobygames.com/company/25/activision-publishing-inc/ - MobyGames.
• gamefaqs.gamespot.com/games/company/1844-activision - GameFAQs.
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision - Wikipedia.