John A. Garcia

John A. Garcia (born 1949) is a Spanish-born American 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.

Born in Galicia, Spain, Garcia came to the United States at the age of nine. He is the brother of oncologist Dr. Francisco Garcia-Moreno and the father of two.

After receiving a degree in Psychology at DePaul University, Garcia went on to study film at the London Film School 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. 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.

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.

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, and was responsible for production of at least 40 software titles.

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, 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), Garcia formed a small team of people from the Dubai film enterprise and experienced Southern Californian programmers. But Kyle Freeman was the real hero.

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