John A. Garcia

John A. Garcia (born 1949) is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is best known as a pioneer of the modern American computer game industry. His early contributions to gaming were partially responsible for the industry’s recovery from the North American video game crash of 1983.

Personal life

Born in Galicia, Spain, Garcia came to the United States when his family fled the Franco dictatorship. He is the brother of oncologist Dr. Francisco Garcia-Moreno and the father of two.^[1]

After receiving a degree in Psychology at DePaul University, Garcia went on to study film at the London Film School^[1] with other notable entertainment industry figures including Michael Mann.

In the early 1980s, realizing the potential behind the nascent computer game industry, he gave up his work in film to dedicate himself to his then hobby, computer programming.^[1] He went on to become a leader of the computer game industry, introducing innovations that define the modern gaming experience. Currently (2010) he is CEO of NovaLogic, Inc.^[2]

Novalogic was fined $153,500 by the Business Software Alliance after an audit found they had unlicensed copies of software by Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, FileMaker, Macromedia, Microsoft and Symantec.^[3]

Career

Early years

Garcia co-founded one of the first commercial film production companies in the United Arab Emirates. In the late 1970s, predicting a boom in the personal computer market, he moved to Southern California, where he worked as Vice President at Datasoft,^[1] and was responsible for production of at least 40 software titles.^[1]

After the North American computer game industry crash of 1983, he left the failing Datasoft to found Novalogic, Inc. While others abandoned the gaming industry,^[1] Garcia took a unique business approach and developed a new formula that helped define the modern industry.

Rather than rushing into the market like other would-be industry players (Quaker Oats, Mattel Electronics^[4]), Garcia formed a small team of people from the Dubai film enterprise and experienced Southern Californian programmers. The result was proven to be an extremely successful new business model.

Creating an entertainment industry approach informed by his experience in the film industry, Garcia pioneered sustainable computer game business. Garcia’s innovative approach moved away from the viewpoint of video games as “toys”. While Mattell and others had viewed video games as a fad, Garcia’s approach focused not only on game play, but technology-development and presentation. This ultimately led to a line of interactive entertainment software that consistently kept up with the demand for novelty.

1990s

In 1999 Garcia, again realizing the versatility of his industry, reached out to Lockheed Martin,^[2] the American military technology company. By mapping out a partnership for Novalogic with Lockheed and other military services, Garcia again chartered new ground for the industry, paving the way for the subsequent boom in first person military simulations.^[5]

Great Recession

Garcia’s business model has remained successful through a time that has seen a devastating rollback in business and unprecedented layoff numbers in the gaming business. While massive enterprises have been slow to adapt to the new situation and were forced to lay off up to 10% of their work force in the fourth quarter of 2009,^[6] the Garcia model has kept Novalogic relatively successful even in the new economic situation. The smaller size of the company has insulated the company from layoffs, allowing them to focus on game development.^[7]

In keeping with his belief in blending gaming with developments in other areas of entertainment, Garcia has pushed the industry in adapting to social networking into the gamer experience.^[8] With the early incorporation of multiplayer games into Novalogic’s flight simulators in the 90s, free MMO service in 2003,^[9] and never-before-seen online numbers for Xbox ^[10] Garcia has kept up with the boom in social media entertainment.

Philanthropy

Garcia has acquired multiple California estates that he uses to support charitable causes. He has joined up with Doctors Without Borders to raise money for their international efforts.^[11] The 2007 event was used as model in the 2008–2009 Doctors Without Borders fund-raising manual. He has been recognized for his philanthropic work by the city of Los Angeles.

Controversy

Garcia’s choice to rent one of his Malibu homes traditionally used for charitable events to a commercial group, Polaroid, came under scrutiny in 2007. Neighbors at his beach home complained that celebrities Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton were bringing an unwanted element to the community.^[12] The story was put on the cover of the LA Times but quickly died down once Polaroid’s contract with the Garcia expired.