The first, true third-party publisher in gaming history, founded by disgruntled ex-Atari programmers in 1979. International publisher, developer and distributor of entertainment software, especially franchise titles. Best-selling titles include MechWarrior 2, Quake II, Hexen II, Dark Reign, Zork: Nemesis, Cabela’s Big Game Hunter and Shanghai for the PC; and Tenchu, Vigilante 8, Nightmare Creatures and Blood Omen for consoles.

Activision maintains operations in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia and the Netherlands.

Activision owns a number of foreign companies: Take Us! Marketing & Consulting GmbH (Germany), Combined Distribution (Holdings) Limited (UK), NBG EDV Handels & Verlag GmbH (Germany), CD Contact Data (Benelux territories), as well as developers Raven Software and Head Games.

In 2007, Activision merged between Activision and Vivendi Games (as well as Blizzard Entertainment, which had already been a division of Vivendi Games) to form the global publishing entity Activision Blizzard.