Bruce L. Davis (born 1952) is an American businessman, most recently

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and chairman of

Digimarc Digimarc Corporation is a provider of enterprise software and services. The company's software, which includes digital identifiers (i.e., serialized QR codes and digital watermarks), are designed to address counterfeiting, product authentici ...

. Formerly the head of both

Imagic Imagic ( ) was an American video game developer and publisher that created games initially for the Atari 2600. Founded in 1981 by corporate alumni of Atari, Inc. and Mattel, its best-selling titles were ''Atlantis'', ''Cosmic Ark'', and ''Demon ...

and

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

, he is known for his role in the development of the

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstream. , ...

Early life and education

A native of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, Davis earned a B.S. in accounting and psychology and an M.A. in criminal justice from

University at Albany, SUNY The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...

, and a J.D. degree from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Career

Davis began his professional career by establishing the

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

practice at the firm of

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Orrick is an international law firm founded in San Francisco, California. The firm advises on transactions, litigation and regulatory matters for venture-backed companies, public companies, E&I funds, financial institutions and governments. Histo ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He assumed leadership of Imagic as it was going out of business in the

video game crash of 1983 The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including ma ...

. From 1987 to 1991, Davis was first

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

, then chairman and CEO of Activision. The

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

promoted him from senior vice president to replace

Jim Levy Jim Levy was a music industry executive before he became the founding chief executive officer for Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing busin ...

shortly after the acquisition of

Infocom Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerstone''. ...

, in the hopes of stemming the continuing financial damage from the crash. He had opposed the merger, and many Infocom employees believed he was deliberately working against them, changing processes that had made the game business successful. Activision co-founder and programmer David Crane was also critical of Davis: "Bruce Davis’ biggest mistake was treating video games as commodities, rather than creative products." Nevertheless, Davis's leadership of Activision began well. He led the company to a profit in his first year at the helm on strong sales growth, following 16 consecutive quarters of multimillion-dollar losses. The turnaround effort was stymied after a huge damages award for infringement of

Magnavox Magnavox (Latin for "great voice", stylized as MAGNAVOX) is an American electronics company that since 1974 has been a subsidiary of the Dutch electronics corporation Philips. The predecessor to Magnavox was founded in 1911 by Edwin Pridham and ...

's original home video game patents was upheld on appeal in 1988. That year Activision changed its name to ''Mediagenic'', as Davis sought to expand the company's product lines to non-gaming software. In February 1991,

Robert Kotick Robert A. Kotick (born 1963) is an American businessman who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard. He became CEO of Activision in 1991 after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick engineered a merger ...

, backed by

Steve Wynn Stephen Alan Wynn (''né'' Weinberg; born January 27, 1942) is an American real estate developer and art collector. He is known for his involvement in the American luxury casino and hotel industry. Early in his career he oversaw the construction ...

Mirage Resorts Mirage Resorts (formerly Golden Nugget Companies) was an American company that owned and operated hotel-casinos. It was acquired by MGM Grand, Inc. in 2000, forming MGM Mirage (now MGM Resorts International). History Golden Nugget Companies Inc. ...

, staged a successful

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...

. Kotick and his team then filed a

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

in cooperation with Magnavox parent company

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

in a

leveraged recapitalization In corporate finance, a leveraged recapitalization is a change of the company's capital structure, usually substitution of debt for equity. Overview Such recapitalizations are executed via issuing bonds to raise money and using the proceeds to bu ...

of Activision, as it was renamed in 1992. Kotick replaced Davis in this restructuring. Starting in 1992, Davis founded and served as president of

TV Guide on Screen Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...

and TCI that supplied electronic guides and navigational software for the cable television market. The company later merged with Prevue Networks, then with TV Guide. TV Guide later merged with Gemstar International. The resulting Gemstar-TV Guide International was acquired in 2008 by

Macrovision TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property ...

. Davis was the chairman and CEO of Digimarc until 2021. He led Digimarc from start up in 1997 to a more than US$100 million public company supplying

digital watermarking A digital watermark is a kind of marker covertly embedded in a noise-tolerant signal such as audio, video or image data. It is typically used to identify ownership of the copyright of such signal. "Watermarking" is the process of hiding digital inf ...

technologies to national and state governments and to the media industry. In April 2021, Davis retired from his role as chairman and CEO of Digimarc. Davis has been awarded more than 50 patents on television user interface and media management and security. In 2003, Davis was named

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

's Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur Of The Year for the technology category.

References

External links

SecurityStockWatch interview with Bruce Davis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Bruce Living people Activision American technology chief executives Columbia Law School alumni People from New York (state) University at Albany, SUNY alumni 1952 births American chief operating officers Video game businesspeople Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe people