Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system published from July 1980 for the US market and from August 1981 for the international market (UK).
Its former CEO is Robert Kotick, who was the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, Inc. since February 1991 until Activision and Vivendi Games merged on July 9, 2008 to create the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard. On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from owner Vivendi, valuing US$2.34 billion. As a result, Activision Blizzard became an independent company.