bradhig Posted December 21, 2002 Share Posted December 21, 2002 How did Activision get a hold of the Imagic games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted December 21, 2002 Share Posted December 21, 2002 They own Imagic as far as I know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted December 21, 2002 Share Posted December 21, 2002 When Imagic died during the 80's, Activision bought up the rights to their games, therefore they own them. They did the same with Absolute, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhindle The Red Posted December 21, 2002 Share Posted December 21, 2002 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted August 24, 2017 Share Posted August 24, 2017 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rasch_C Posted August 24, 2017 Share Posted August 24, 2017 Definitely would be interesting to know the status. I was under the impression that Imagic was an abandoned trademark at this poin. But would be nice to know the status for sure. It would be cool if someone could reboot the company. -Allen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted August 24, 2017 Share Posted August 24, 2017 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted August 25, 2017 Share Posted August 25, 2017 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted August 25, 2017 Share Posted August 25, 2017 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted August 25, 2017 Share Posted August 25, 2017 (edited) 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. Edited August 25, 2017 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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