Asteroids, Gauntlet Designer Ed Logg Honored With Pioneer Award

Game design and programming veteran Ed Logg has been named the recipient of a coveted interactive art award. Logg is best known as a veteran of Atari's coin-op division in the golden age of gaming. He was the co-designer of both Centipede and Asteroids, as well as the lead developer on 1985's Gauntlet. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) will present Logg with its 2012 AIAS Pioneer Award at its 15th annual Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony in Las Vegas on February 9. "What I learned from Ed was that creating the fun of a game did not require complex algorithms as much as it required the right approach," said former Atari Games colleague Mark Cerny, who will present Logg with the award during the reception. "Which is to say that it wasn't virtuoso coding that made Ed's games a success, as much as it was putting all the proper features in the game in the correct order. "Of course, you needed an amazing intuition as to which were the 'proper' features, that was the difficulty in replicating Ed's strategy!" Logg will be the third recipient of the Pioneer Award in as many years: the first inductee was Activision co-founder David Crane, and the second was Raster Blaster and Pinball Construction Set creator Bill Budge. More information on the AIAS Awards is available on its official website.