The game designer behind the classic arcade game Missile Command will receive the Pioneer Award at this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards held in San Francisco.
Dave Theurer worked with Atari during the golden age of arcades in the 1980s and created Missile Command, which required players to defend a group of cities from a barrage of ballistic missiles.
Theurer also created the vector-based shooter Tempest, one of the earliest arcade titles to use a 3-D perspective while playing.
The Pioneer Award is given to individuals “responsible for developing a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history, paving the way for the many developers who followed them,” reads a statement from the Game Developers Conference, hosts of the awards ceremony.
