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Imagic games under activision name


bradhig

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Activision did not buy Imagic. This is a common misconception. Late in the life span of the Atari 2600, Activision bought three of the Imagic games outright: Demon Attack , Atlantis and Moonsweeper. They did not buy the whole company.

 

Absolute, on the other hand, was made up of former Activision employees and they had a manufacturing (and possibly distribution) deal with Activision. This is why Absolute titles basically came in Activision cartridge shells. Activision never owned them, either. The Absolute line is currently owned by Skyworks Technologies, the current company of Absolute founder (and former Activisioner) Garry Kitchen. I know this, because while working on the Activision Anthology project I hacked the Absolute 2600 ROMs to include an updated copyright notice for Skyworks.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Trent, this is Colonel Edwards from Washington DC.

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  • 14 years later...

Activision did not buy Imagic. This is a common misconception. Late in the life span of the Atari 2600, Activision bought three of the Imagic games outright: Demon Attack , Atlantis and Moonsweeper. They did not buy the whole company.

 

I know this is a very old post. Do we know what happened to the other Imagic properties? Are they effectively abandoned, or does someone else control them?

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Trademarks can be abandoned but if nobody purchased the software copyrights than it would still belong to the Imagic shareholders at the time Imagic folded. And Activision may have bought Atari 2600 Demon Attack software rights but that does not necessarily mean they bought the other versions (eg. Intellivision, c64) or the audio/visual rights.

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At the risk of double-quoting myself, here's an old post that I wrote which addressed the Imagic/Activision ownership question:

Interesting question. I've often heard it said that Activision "acquired" Imagic after it closed its doors in 1985, but I'm not sure that's entirely true. I posted this in an earlier thread:

Regarding the Imagic titles: Despite popular belief, I don't think Activision owns or has ever owned any of the Imagic properties. If you listen to the November/December 2005 episodes of Retro Gaming Radio, you'll hear an extensive interview with Bruce Davis (the CEO of Imagic at the time it went under and later the CEO of Activision). According to him, Imagic went into bankruptcy in 1985 after selling off its fixed assets, and still exists as a California corporation "in bad standing" because it hasn't paid its debts to the state in 20+ years. If those were to be cleared, Imagic could be revived and would continue to hold all the rights it previously had. Because there was no buyer, and because Bruce Davis had no successor as CEO of Imagic, he technically still owns the properties but hasn't been approached with a serious offer for them yet.


To the best of my recollection, that's almost an exact quote from Davis. Take it for whatever it's worth. I've also heard that Bill Grubb (the former president of Imagic, whom Davis replaced) has confirmed that Activision did not acquire Imagic.

Here is a link to an even older post by John Hardie; he was the one who contacted Bill Grubb.

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At the risk of double-quoting myself, here's an old post that I wrote which addressed the Imagic/Activision ownership question:

 

 

Here is a link to an even older post by John Hardie; he apparently contacted Bill Grubb (former Imagic president), who had no knowledge of any acquisition of the Imagic properties by Activision.

 

Related video clip?

 

youtube.com/watch?v=Z0zte5Z8tJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0zte5Z8tJU

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There is the old 2004 interview with Bruce Davis. http://www.retrogamingradio.com/thearchives/archives.php?isClassics=1#year2004. That link has only a description of that recording. Does anyone know if Davis said anything about this in the interview?

 

Bruce Davis was president of Imagic in 1985 and then joined Activision in 1987. But I don't know if he was a shareholder but he should know about assets. Imagic had lots of partners and investors including Bill Grubb and several programmers. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers were venture capitalist investors.

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