Garry Kitchen is Vice President of Game Publishing for Viacom's Nickelodeon MTV Networks Kids and Family Game Group. Prior to Viacom, Garry was President & CEO of AppStar Games, a startup digital publisher founded by Garry with his long time partner, David Crane, co-founder of Activision.
With more
than 30 years of experience in interactive electronics, Kitchen has been
involved in multimedia since the beginning. His innovative hand-held electronic game Bank Shot, marketed
by Parker Brothers in 1980, was named one of the 10 best toys of the year by
Omni Magazine. Kitchen was awarded
a U.S. patent for Bank Shot. That
same year, anticipating the coming video game revolution, Kitchen
back-engineered the Atari 2600 game system, developing Space Jockey, an early
2600 compatible product and one of the first third party games for the
platform.
In 1982,
Kitchen designed and programmed Coleco’s smash hit Atari version of the Donkey
Kong arcade game, a video game cartridge whose sales eclipsed $100
million. Moving onto Activision,
Kitchen’s 1982 release Keystone Kapers received critical acclaim and achieved
worldwide sales of more than 750,000 units. Garry Kitchen’s Gamemaker, a top-selling Activision title
for the Commodore 64, earned Kitchen the title of Video Game Designer of the
Year in 1985.
In 1986, Kitchen founded Absolute Entertainment, Inc., building it into one of the leading video game developers in North America. Under his leadership, Absolute created more than 120 software titles while working with such leading entertainment companies as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, 3DO, Paramount Pictures, MCA, 20th Century Fox, Acclaim, and Electronic Arts. Kitchen’s 1991 release, The Simpsons Bart vs. the Space Mutants, published by Acclaim Entertainment, was praised by Variety Magazine as a breakthrough in the video game licensing of television properties. The “Bart vs....” line of Simpsons games went on to sell more than 2 million units, establishing Bart and family as a mainstay property in entertainment software. Kitchen’s 1992 release, Super Battletank, was named Best Simulation Game by Game Informer Magazine. In 1995, Kitchen launched Absolute Electronics and co-developed the Video One Touch, an innovative remote control for use with the RCA DSS Satellite Dish.
In 1995, with the founding of Skyworks, Kitchen shifted his focus from retail game publishing to the potential of the Internet as a digital distribution channel for games. Skyworks pioneered free online gaming with the launch of the innovative LifeSavers Candystand, hailed by experts as the premier example of brand-sponsored gaming, or Advergaming. Skyworks went on to supply advergames to world-class brands, including Nabisco, Pepsi, BMW, ESPN and Ford. In 2008, Skyworks expanded its focus to the emerging downloadable games market, initially targeting the iPhone App Store. Before leaving Skyworks, Kitchen led a team of 50 in the development of over 30 titles for the iPhone, with 15 titles reaching Top 100 status in the Apple App Store.
In addition to Kitchen's work in multimedia, he is an experienced Expert Witness in the areas of Video Game Design, Software Development, Internet Technologies and Patent Infringement.
Kitchen has received numerous awards for his work, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in Video Games and a nomination as Entrepreneur of the Year in New Jersey in 1993. His knowledge and experience in interactive entertainment is well respected, with numerous television appearances including CNBC, ABC Eyewitness News, NBC’s Today Show and CNN as well as interviews in various consumer and trade publications.