Marvel Enterprises Inc. announced the appointment of Ames Kirshen as Manager of Game Development, a new position at Marvel where Kirshen will serve as 'an in-house Executive Producer and creative liaison' for Marvel's interactive licensees and game developers.  Kirshen spent the past six years with Warner Brothers and DC Comics in a similar position where he helped produce a number of number of major releases including Batman: Vengeance, Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu, and Superman: Shadow of Apokolips.  In his new position at Marvel Kirshen will report to Gui Karyo, Marvel's President of Publishing, who will supervise the overall game development process.  Kirshen will also work closely with Tim Rothwell, Marvel's President of Worldwide Consumer Products, to foster new licensing relationships with video game publishers.

Marvel's various video game licensees sold over 6 million units of Marvel-based video games in both 2002 and 2003.  Since Marvel is now primarily a licensing powerhouse, and the cash rich video game industry is a prime source of licensing revenue, Kirshen's position is extremely important, as Marvel clearly wants to continue to exploit this very lucrative area of licensing. 

Currently Activision is Marvel's most active video game licensee with four games in production: X2: Spider-Man II Movie (summer 2004), X-Men Legends (fall 2004), Fantastic Four (2005), and Iron Man (2005). Vivendi-Universal has two games on the schedule: The Hulk 2 (2005), and the Marvel Universe MMP (TBA), while THQ has one, The Punisher (Fall 2004).