David Crane

David Crane (born in Nappanee, Indiana, United States) is an American video game designer and programmer.

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.

Once Crane graduated in 1972, he could code in three different programming languages.

Crane went to the DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix, Arizona.

He completed the four-year course in 33 months and received his degree in electrical engineering.

Following college, he moved to Silicon Valley and got his first job at National Semiconductor in 1975.

At the company, he worked on linear integrated circuits in order to become proficient in electronic design.

While playing tennis with Alan Miller, he was told by his friend that Atari was looking for game programmers.

After proofreading a newspaper ad his friend had made for the position, Crane wrote a resume, was interviewed the next day at 10 am and had the job by 2 pm.

Through his friend Alan Miller he learned about potential video game design work at Atari, Inc. and began work there in 1977.

Crane joined Atari, Inc. in the third quarter of 1977 and first began producing Arcade-inspired titled such as Outlaw and Canyon Bomber for the Atari VCS (later known as the Atari 2600).

Crane was initially unsure about programming games, but found he enjoyed microprocessor programming and game design.

Atari began their new line of computers with the Atari 800 and required help with software development.

This led to Atari having all of its game designers, including Crane, step in to work on the machine's operating system.

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.

In 1979, Crane and other game developers at Atari, including Miller, Larry Kaplan, and Bob Whitehead received a memo indicating that their games were the most financially successful for Atari, making up $60 million of Atari's $100 million game cartridge sales in 1978.

As they were making a salary of $30,000, they asked for a raise and, according to Crane, were told by Ray Kassar that Crane was "no more important to the success of those products than the person on the assembly line who puts them together."

Crane and Miller left Atari in August 1979.

They had a plan to create an independent development and publishing company to produce games for Atari's VCS console, which had not been attempted previously.

Crane was suggested by a lawyer to Jim Levy in 1979.

Levy had been working for GRT Records and was raising money to go into business making cassette tape software and believed abilities in marketing and the business skills to help create their new company Activision.

Initially working out of Crane's apartment, Miller and Crane began programming a development system for Activision.

Whitehead and Kaplan would join shortly after.

The company grew to be massively successful, with Crane's game Pitfall! (1982) being one the biggest sellers for the company.

Crane continued to work for Activison making several games for the Atari 2600 and later the Commodore 64.

After Activision hired Bruce Davis as the new CEO, Crane left Activison 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 would make browser games in the mid 1990s and was among the first developers of games that would later be known as advergames.

While at Skyworks, Crane designed two of the companies biggest App store sellers with Arcade Bowling and Arcade Hoops Basketball.

In the 2010s, Crane would develop games for AppStar for iPhone and iPad and by the end of the decade created Audacity Games, a company that would develop games for older consoles such as the Atari 2600.

David Crane was born in Nappanee, Indiana.

When he was young, Crane was fascinated by technology and engineering.

He would dismantle a black and white television to create a channel tuner near his bedside and make a TV in a cabinet on his wall and create a laser that could ignite a match at the end of a workbench.

He intended to work on making gadgets that would help people in their lives, but on reflection in 2010, he stated "Ironically, video game design was even a better fit for that combination of skills. But as I was growing up there was no such thing as a videogame, so how could I know?"

Crane's first encounter with a video game was with the Magnavox Odyssey that his parents bought him.

He later admitted he was "bored by the rudimentary games" but was fascinated by the technology's potential.

Crane first encountered a computer through a Boy Scout master who worked in data processing and began learning Hollerith code for punched cards.

He attended a computer programming extension campus.