Making Waves

In Kendall Kunz’s line of work, key players aren’t the suits in upper management; they’re the average office workers who kill time with computer games.

Kunz, a 44-year-old Naples entrepreneur, is the founder of Kickplay (www.kickplay.com), a Web site with a library of customized and customizable computer games. If there’s one you like—say, solitaire—you can click on "personalize" and upload your own sounds and images, or choose from the vast collection in Kickplay’s library.

"The site has had tens of thousands of visitors over the last several months," Kunz says. "The most popular game types are Match 3, Connect 4 and Mahjong."

Kunz, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business management in 1988 from Purdue University in Indiana, has started several businesses, including Full Armor Studios Inc., a gaming company in Seattle; and The Florida Land Company, a land acquisition company that brought him to Naples in 2005.

He’s had the idea for Kickplay from the time he owned Full Armor Studios, which he sold in 2004. Kunz started making games for his friends and their children, and wanted to create a forum where non-techies could do the same.

Kickplay is that venue, though the company, which celebrates its one-year anniversary this month, is already moving in a new direction. With growth slower than expected, Kunz believes Kickplay has a better chance at succeeding as a business-to-business company—for instance, one that would create a game for the NFL Web site. Such sites currently require a programmer to create games and develop quizzes, but Kickplay’s technology will enable the average content editor to do so.

"We have several parties interested in syndicating our platform to their sites. Most of these are international companies located outside the U.S.," Kunz says. "We will be excited to announce them just as soon as they happen."