Over at big sister website Gamasutra, sometime GSW columnist J.Fleming has posted an in-depth history of major publisher Activision - and, as the intro notes, the massive company now in charge of franchises from Guitar Hero to Tony Hawk and beyond: "...started with just four game developers leaving Atari in 1979."

Co-founder and Pitfall! creator David Crane gave an extensive interview for the piece, noting of just why the initial four Activision founders departed Atari: "A memo was circulated from the marketing department showing the prior year’s cartridge sales, broken down by game as a percentage of sales. The intent of the memo was to alert the game development staff to what types of games were selling well."

He continued: “This memo backfired however, as it demonstrated the value of the game designer individually. Video game design in those days was a one-man process with one person doing the creative design, the storyboards, the graphics, the music, the sound effects, every line of programming, and final play testing. So when I saw a memo that the games for which I was 100 percent responsible had generated over $20 million in revenues, I was one of the people wondering why I was working in complete anonymity for a $20,000 salary." Oh boy.