Activision, Inc. NASDAQ: ATVI is an American video game developer and publisher. It was the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles, founded on October 1, 1979. [2] Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system, and it is now one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world, so far being the top publisher of 2007 in the U.S.