Ghostbusters is a licensed game by Activision based on the movie of the same name. It was designed by David Crane, produced by Brad Fregger, and released for several home computer platforms in 1984, and later for video game console systems, including the Atari 2600, Master System and NES. The primary target platform was the Commodore 64 and the programmer for the initial version of the game was Adam Bellin.

In early 1984, while the Ghostbusters movie was nearing completion, Tom Lopez, vice president of Activision’s Product Development, contacted Columbia Pictures to obtain a license for a Ghostbusters video game. Columbia gave Activision no 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 were forced to complete the programming work in only six weeks in contrast to their usual several months of development time for a game. Activision had at the time a rough concept for a driving/maze game to be called “Car Wars”, and it was decided to build the Ghostbusters game from it. The effort paid off as both the movie and the game proved to be huge successes.