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Joe Kaminkow, Chief Innovation Officer for Aristocrat
Joe Kaminkow’s career began when he started his own game development company, Logical
Highs. He soon joined Williams Electronics where he quickly rose to prominence when he
secured licensing rights from NASA that led to Williams’ 1984 smash hit game Space Shuttle.
Noticing a resurgence in pinball games in the mid-1980s, Joe and Gary Stern founded Data
East Pinball, where Joe quickly leveraged his talent at securing valuable licenses into a flurry of
successful pinballs such as The Simpsons, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Joe also pioneered
licensing in the arcade novelty business. He was then recruited by International Game
Technology (IGT) to revolutionize slot machines through the extensive use of licensed titles,
including Wheel of Fortune, Elvis, and Sex and the City. Joe went on to found Spooky Cool
Labs in Chicago, where he developed an online Wizard of Oz city builder, before the company
was acquired by Zynga (home to Farmville and Words With Friends). Joe developed the
successful Hit It Rich online social slot before leaving Zynga in 2022 to devote himself full-time
to Aristocrat as Chief Innovation Officer. In this role, he helps drive innovation across
Aristocrat’s global enterprise, including in new gaming products and mobile game genres, while
further growing the Group's capabilities and fostering world-class talent.
Joe holds over 150 patents throughout the fields of game design, operations, and networks, and
has either created or contributed game design intellectual property to more than 1,500 games
across multiple game formats and markets. He has been inducted into the Pinball Hall of Fame,
the American Gaming Association's Hall of Fame, the Licensing Internation Hall of Fame, the
Coin-Op Hall of Fame, the Amusement Expo International’s Hall of Fame and the EKG Hall of
Fame, as well as being named a "Top Ten Most Influential Person in Gaming" by Strictly Slots
Magazine. Joe resides in Las Vegas with his wife Benita and is an avid car collector with his
most recent restoration being an Aston Martin DB5 with all the James Bondesque gadgets.