David Crane: Classic Game Programmer
September 25, 2008 - 9:20 am - Posted by Sean
David Crane started his programming career at Atari, making games for the Atari 2600.
After meeting up with co-worker Alan Miller in a tennis game, Miller discussed with him a plan he had to leave and found a company that would give game designers more recognition.
From this meeting, he left Atari in 1979 and co-founded Activision, along with Miller, Jim Levy, Bob Whitehead and Larry Kaplan.
His games have won many awards while he was at Activision.
David Crane is best known as the designer of Pitfall!, a game that stayed at the top of the charts for 64 weeks.
Other Activision hits written by David Crane include Dragster, Fishing Derby, Laser Blast, Freeway, Grand Prix and Skateboardin’.
In 1986, David Crane left Activision to co-found Absolute Entertainment with Garry Kitchen.
The two of them left mainly because of Jim Levy’s departure, and the way the newly appointed CEO of Activision, Bruce Davis, treated video games more like commodities rather than creative products.
Although David Crane worked for Absolute, he did all of his programming at his home in California.
For Absolute Entertainment, he was known for “A Boy and His Blob”, a successful NES title following the adventures of an adolescent male’s journey into puberty with his white ‘blob’, and Amazing Tennis.
In 1995, Absolute Entertainment was dissolved, and became a defunct company.
After the closing of Absolute Entertainment, David Crane co-founded Skyworks Technologies, Inc. and is currently Chief Technical Officer.
Skyworks Technologies is a privately held multimedia developer specializing in interactive marketing and high-end game development.
Recently at a Classic Gaming convention I had the opportunity to meet David Crane and watch him play a few games of Pitfall:
I have to say, David is a really cool guy and loves talking about the good old days of the Atari 2600, Activision and retro gaming in general.
It was an honor to meet David Crane. He was cool enough to let me snap a picture of him playing Pitfall as seen above.
I hope to see him again around the classic gaming scene.
Pitfall is a great game. I also enjoy River Raid. Did David Crane work on that game too?
I had no idea that David Crane was still around and involved in the gaming scene. He looks like a jolly good fellow, in both his younger picture and in the more recent picture you took.
@Billy The Kid: No, David Crane didn’t program River Raid. It was done by Carol Shaw who also originally worked for Atari then later left to join Activision.
Carol Shaw is said to be the first female video game designer which is a cool nugget of information. In 1979 she programmed the 3D Tic-Tac-Toe game for Atari. River Raid is a much better game for sure.
Yes, David Crane was really friendly and laughed a lot. I really enjoyed spending some time talking with him.