Activision – The Rise of the 3rd Party Manufacturers

In the early years of the home console industry, Atari games were exclusively released by Atari, games for the Channel F of Fairchild, and so on. In 1979, four game designers at Atari realized that their games contributed millions of sales to their employer, but they themselves worked anonymously and for a fixed salary. In a conversation with Atari chief Ray Kassar, Larry Kaplan, Bob Whitehead, Alan Miller and David Crane demanded royalties and a mention of their name on the cover of the games. Kassar replied that the four were nothing but towel designers whose job anyone else could do the same.

Kaplan, Whitehead, Miller and Crane then resigned and founded Activision, the first 3rd party publisher in video game history (whose name was created not least so that “Activision” would appear before “Atari” in the telephone directory). Atari sued unsuccessfully against the new and extremely successful company, which put its designers in the foreground and staged as stars.