Industry Veterans Crane, Kitchen Launch Smartphone Publisher AppStar Games

Skyworks Interactive co-founders David Crane and Garry Kitchen announced the formation of AppStar Games, a publisher focused on "small footprint" titles for smartphones, wireless tablets, and handheld consoles. Crane and Kitchen leave their former positions at casual games publisher Skyworks, which shifted its focus to the iPhone and iPod Touch in 2009. While at Skyworks, Crane designed two of the company's biggest App Store sellers in 2009, Arcade Bowling and Arcade Hoops Basketball. Together, Crane and Kitchen have authored hundreds of games for platforms ranging from the Atari 2600 to modern smartphones. The pair's product history includes well-known titles like A Boy and His Blob, The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants, and Pitfall!, which Crane created as an original co-founder of Activision. Kitchen serves as president and CEO at AppStar. Crane joins as the company's chief technical officer. AppStar's current staff includes former Skyworks chief creative officer Bill Wentworth and veteran developer Roger Booth. "Garry and I have worked together on a number of successful ventures over the years, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for investors and stakeholders," said Crane. "We're very excited about the dramatic shift that is occurring in the game industry with the advent of direct-to-consumer distribution of our titles," Crane adds. "AppStar Games is committed to taking a leadership role in that transition by delivering the highest quality product in the marketplace." AppStar Games will publish its first titles in the second quarter of 2010.