David Crane (programmer)

David Crane (born 1954) is an American video game designer and programmer. He is the co-founder of Activision, which he formed with former Atari co-workers in 1979. Crane grew up fascinated by technology and went to DeVry Institute of Technology. Following college, he went to Silicon Valley and got his first job at National Semiconductor. Through his friend Alan Miller he learned about potential video game design work at Atari, Inc., and began work there in 1977. After Crane and other programmers felt they were not being paid fairly at Atari, he left the company in 1979. Crane and Miller formed Activision, the first company to independently publish games for the Atari 2600. The company grew to be massively successful, with Crane's game Pitfall! (1982) being one of the biggest sellers for the company. Crane continued to work for Activision making several games for the Atari 2600 and later the Commodore 64. After Activision hired Bruce Davis as the new CEO, Crane left Activision and later joined Garry Kitchen at Absolute Entertainment. At Absolute, Crane began working on several games for the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. After Absolute closed in 1995, Crane formed Skyworks Technologies, who made browser games in the mid-1990s and was among the first developers of a type of game later known as advergames. While at Skyworks, Crane designed two of the company's bestsellers on the App Store, Arcade Bowling and Arcade Hoops Basketball. In the 2010s, Crane developed games for AppStar for iPhone and iPad and by the end of the decade created Audacity Games, a company that developed games for older consoles such as the Atari 2600.