Crane and Miller formed Activision, the first company to independently publish games for the Atari 2600.

After Activision hired Bruce Davis as the new CEO, Crane left Activison and later joined Garry Kitchen at Absolute Entertainment.

He intended to work on making gadgets that would help people in their lives but, in 2010, he reflected that "...video game design was even a better fit for that combination of skills.

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

[8] 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.

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

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.

with two games: The Activision Decathlon (1983), which was developed with the impetus that the Olympics would be returning to the United States in 1984, and a sequel titled Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (1984).

[17] Crane reflected on adapting to programming for the C64 as a "mixed blessing", specifically finding that the tools he had been using were now obsolete and that they needed to create new development systems, compressors and decompressors, audio and sound effect drivers.

As the deal was signed, Activision's board of directors replaced Levy and brought in Bruce Davis as the new CEO.

"[23] He also noted a pay issue, saying that "the new president, Bruce Davis, asked me to take a fraction of my salary, with the rest made up through an incentive bonus.

[28] At Absolute, Crane worked on titles for the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Crane recalled that "It was painful to close down Absolute, but the same was happening to small publishers all around the world.

Believing that audiences would be too afraid to give out information such as credit cards online, they developed a business model that later became known as advergaming which involved allowing their games to be played for free but licensing them to other companies' websites.

Crane and Skyworks took a percentage of their promotions budget and built a place to play games.

Crane called this "moderately successful arrangement, only limited by the learning curve of their salespeople who could never quite understand the difference between sponsorship and advertising.

[31][32] Crane began reflecting on his career in 2010 and started writing and gathering material about working on Atari 2600 games.

He considered publishing them to magazines or as a book, but opted to release them through AppStar Games on the iPhone, initially writing a work on Dragster but starting with a 2600 primer titled 2600 Magic as an app.

[34][35] In the late 2010s, Crane and Kitchen created a company focused on hardware technology that made cartridges and ROM boards for development of Atari 2600 games.

[7][37] In January 1983, The Video Game Update awarded David Crane as the Designer of the Year for Pitfall!

"[34] In February 2010, Crane became the first recipient of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Pioneer award.

[41] In 2010, Crane said he still plays tennis in tournament league competitions, but due to age and injuries he is no longer at the 5.0 level.