In 1984, after the film Ghostbusters had been launched, John Dolgen VP of Business Development at Columbia Pictures approached Activision International president Gregory Fischbach and offered to license the game rights to Activision without specific rules or requests for the design or content of the game, only stipulating that it was to be finished as quickly as possible in order to be released while the movie was at peak popularity.

Activision was forced to complete the programming work in only six weeks in contrast to their usual several months of development time for a game.

At the start of the game, the player is given a set amount of money and must use it to buy a vehicle and equipment for detecting and catching ghosts.

When the player moves to a flashing block, the game shifts to an overhead street view and they must drive to the site, attempting to vacuum up stray ghosts if the vehicle is equipped to do so.

Successfully doing so awards money, but each failure causes the PK energy level to jump and incapacitates one of the player's three team member characters.

As the game progresses, the player must also keep free-roaming ghosts from reaching the temple of Zuul for as long as possible; each one that does so adds to the PK energy level.

The ghosts occasionally merge to form the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who will attempt to trample a city block.

If the player has not earned more money than the total spent on equipment when the PK energy level reaches its maximum of 9999, the game ends immediately.

[6] Tom Lopez, the Vice President of Activision's product development acquired the license for Ghostbusters to adapt into a game.

[8] Crane applied content from the film into the game, replacing guns, missiles and rocket launchers with more appropriate weapons that the Ghostbusters would use.

Crane spent most of the time ensuring the game had a proper beginning, middle and end and, during final development, predominantly focused on fixing bugs.

"[15] Antic in May 1985 called Ghostbusters for Atari 8-bit fun to play, describing it as the first adaptation to capture the feel and theme of the movie on which it is based.

[25] From retrospective reviews, Edge in 2007 called Ghostbusters "dauntingly good", noting that despite the action sequences expected of a licensed title, the game was a "polished, intelligently-paced strategic business simulation".

[37] The Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum versions of the game were included on the 1986 compilation They Sold a Million 3,[38][39] along with Fighter Pilot, Rambo and Kung-Fu Master.

A retrospective review noted releases like Street Hawk, Knight Rider, Highlander and Miami Vice were described by Retro Gamer as "cynical cash-ins" having little to do with their respective shows.