6 ms·

Wow, if that's true, then my perception of activision has been wrong for a long time [edit] it is!

AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
Oh, don't worry. The Activision you're probably familiar with is the one purchased and revived by Bobby Kotick in 1991.
vikingerik 5y ago
The current Activision and Atari each have nothing to do with the companies from the early 1980s - each shut down and ceased operations long ago, and the name was just bought out by successors.
- 300bps 5y ago
  Interestingly, Atari was bought by Jack Tramiel who was the founder of Commodore Business Machines that made the Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64 and more. January 1984, Jack Tramiel essentially got booted out of the company he founded (Commodore). July 1984, Jack Tramiel bought the Consumer Division of Atari Inc. from Warner Communications.
  - geoelectric 5y ago
    It's even more interesting. Commodore hired a bunch of ex-Atari people for the Amiga while Tramiel was building his cadre for what became the ST. They basically swapped talent. https://dfarq.homeip.net/atari-st-vs-amiga/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/atari-st-vs-amiga/
    - 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
      If you squint enough, there's a chain that looks something like this: Atari 2600 => Atari 400/800 => Amiga => Atari Lynx => 3DO. It's not that there's a specific set of people or technological concepts running through all of them, but each one has a strong connection to the next.
      - pkaye 5y ago
        There is a lot of similarity between the Atari 400/800 display list and the Amiga copper list given they were developed by the same team.
        HNSucksAss 5y ago
      - geoelectric 5y ago
        Think 5200 is in the middle of your first two, since I believe architecturally it was a 400 without a keyboard (or more accurately, the 400 was basically a 5200 with a keyboard). But yeah, that's super interesting too. I skipped Lynx in my console journey so wasn't as familiar with that, but I didn't realize the 3DO (which I did have) was loosely part of the talent family too. But yeah, now that I think about it, I guess Hawkins must have ended up tapping the talent pools freeing up from the ST/Amiga/GS generations since those died out right around the time 3DO was being developed.
vanadium 5y ago
Not only that: "Activision was the first independent, third-party, console video game developer." Growing up, that was the lens I always saw them through (and I had minor addictions to Laser Blast and River Raid, among others), so to see what they've become, well, you know. Not the same in any way from the David Crane days, just as it is with Atari from the Bushnell days through Warner, then Tramiel, then JTS, Hasbro, etc through present day. Days long, long gone. The memories are nice.
- lowercased 5y ago
  IIRC, Imagic was the second? Demon Attack was, again IIRC, their first, and was visually smashing compared to almost anything else on the Atari VCS at the time.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    LaserBlast dedication page: https://laserblast.neocities.org/ https://laserblast.neocities.org/
    - orionblastar 5y ago
      I played Laserblast when I had the chickenpox and I scored one million and all the numbers turned into explanation points. I took a picture but had flash on so it didn't take.
- DerekL 5y ago
  By the way, David Crane and others are making Atari 2600 games again! https://adgm.us/portal/index.html https://adgm.us/portal/index.html
  - tomcam 5y ago
    They don’t seem to be trying very hard. The Buy button yields, well, suboptimal results
    - 5y ago
JohnBooty 5y ago
You should check out the origin of EA / Electronic Arts. They were really about empowering artists -- the initial concept was pretty highminded and artist-oriented. [Trip] Hawkins had developed the ideas of treating software as an art form and calling the developers, "software artists" [...] Their first such ad, accompanied by the slogan "We see farther," was the first video game advertisement to feature software designers. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. The square "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their developers as "rock stars" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#1982%E2%80%931991:_Trip_Hawkins_era,_founding,_and_early_success The name, "Electronic Artists", flowed from this idea. Incredible to think of, in light of the microtransaction nightmare hellscape seen in most EA software.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  I remember those ads. IIRC, they were two full page spreads in the most popular magazines for the Commodore, and I'd assume for Atari too. As a kid, I was confused why they were showing these people because no other company did this. From that time on, it stuck in my head from that computer games weren't some kind of magic that came down from the heavens but were created by actual humans. While I never wrote games that got published, I started experimenting and playing around with making them myself, which lead to a career in software development.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    Yes! Those ads were so inspirational!
    - tanseydavid 5y ago
      Will Harvey's Music Construction Set was the first EA title that I ever purchased. They definitely gave this guy the aura of a rock star in the packaging that came with the title.
kgwxd 5y ago
Cool origin story for sure, but they're not even close to the same company anymore :)

Oh, don't worry. The Activision you're probably familiar with is the one purchased and revived by Bobby Kotick in 1991.

The current Activision and Atari each have nothing to do with the companies from the early 1980s - each shut down and ceased operations long ago, and the name was just bought out by successors.

300bps 5y ago
Interestingly, Atari was bought by Jack Tramiel who was the founder of Commodore Business Machines that made the Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64 and more. January 1984, Jack Tramiel essentially got booted out of the company he founded (Commodore). July 1984, Jack Tramiel bought the Consumer Division of Atari Inc. from Warner Communications.
- geoelectric 5y ago
  It's even more interesting. Commodore hired a bunch of ex-Atari people for the Amiga while Tramiel was building his cadre for what became the ST. They basically swapped talent. https://dfarq.homeip.net/atari-st-vs-amiga/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/atari-st-vs-amiga/
  - 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
    If you squint enough, there's a chain that looks something like this: Atari 2600 => Atari 400/800 => Amiga => Atari Lynx => 3DO. It's not that there's a specific set of people or technological concepts running through all of them, but each one has a strong connection to the next.
    - pkaye 5y ago
      There is a lot of similarity between the Atari 400/800 display list and the Amiga copper list given they were developed by the same team.
      - HNSucksAss 5y ago
    - geoelectric 5y ago
      Think 5200 is in the middle of your first two, since I believe architecturally it was a 400 without a keyboard (or more accurately, the 400 was basically a 5200 with a keyboard). But yeah, that's super interesting too. I skipped Lynx in my console journey so wasn't as familiar with that, but I didn't realize the 3DO (which I did have) was loosely part of the talent family too. But yeah, now that I think about it, I guess Hawkins must have ended up tapping the talent pools freeing up from the ST/Amiga/GS generations since those died out right around the time 3DO was being developed.

vanadium 5y ago

Not only that: "Activision was the first independent, third-party, console video game developer." Growing up, that was the lens I always saw them through (and I had minor addictions to Laser Blast and River Raid, among others), so to see what they've become, well, you know. Not the same in any way from the David Crane days, just as it is with Atari from the Bushnell days through Warner, then Tramiel, then JTS, Hasbro, etc through present day. Days long, long gone. The memories are nice.

lowercased 5y ago
IIRC, Imagic was the second? Demon Attack was, again IIRC, their first, and was visually smashing compared to almost anything else on the Atari VCS at the time.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  LaserBlast dedication page: https://laserblast.neocities.org/ https://laserblast.neocities.org/
  - orionblastar 5y ago
    I played Laserblast when I had the chickenpox and I scored one million and all the numbers turned into explanation points. I took a picture but had flash on so it didn't take.
DerekL 5y ago
By the way, David Crane and others are making Atari 2600 games again! https://adgm.us/portal/index.html https://adgm.us/portal/index.html
- tomcam 5y ago
  They don’t seem to be trying very hard. The Buy button yields, well, suboptimal results
  - 5y ago

JohnBooty 5y ago

You should check out the origin of EA / Electronic Arts. They were really about empowering artists -- the initial concept was pretty highminded and artist-oriented. [Trip] Hawkins had developed the ideas of treating software as an art form and calling the developers, "software artists" [...] Their first such ad, accompanied by the slogan "We see farther," was the first video game advertisement to feature software designers. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. The square "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their developers as "rock stars" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#1982%E2%80%931991:_Trip_Hawkins_era,_founding,_and_early_success The name, "Electronic Artists", flowed from this idea. Incredible to think of, in light of the microtransaction nightmare hellscape seen in most EA software.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago
I remember those ads. IIRC, they were two full page spreads in the most popular magazines for the Commodore, and I'd assume for Atari too. As a kid, I was confused why they were showing these people because no other company did this. From that time on, it stuck in my head from that computer games weren't some kind of magic that came down from the heavens but were created by actual humans. While I never wrote games that got published, I started experimenting and playing around with making them myself, which lead to a career in software development.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Yes! Those ads were so inspirational!
  - tanseydavid 5y ago
    Will Harvey's Music Construction Set was the first EA title that I ever purchased. They definitely gave this guy the aura of a rock star in the packaging that came with the title.

kgwxd 5y ago

Cool origin story for sure, but they're not even close to the same company anymore :)