Industry vet Bill Budge to be second recipient of the AIAS Pioneer Award

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced Bill Budge as the second recipient of the AIAS Pioneer Award, which recognizes contributions made by those who helped to "create the interactive entertainment industry."

Budge worked in the videogame space for more than 30 years of and is being nominated for the award due to his work in "writing quality codes to designing games that paved the way for future program designers."

While at Apple, Budge created the game Raster Blaster in 1981 for Apple II, as well as wrote programs which allowed folks to build their own games. One such program was the 3-D Game Tool, which allowed non-programmers to create simple 3D games and applications. He also created Pinball Construction Set in 1983 while at EA, which was the first user-generated toolkit, and one of the first iterations of a mouse-like interface in a game.

Budge also worked at 3DO where he built a 3D engine for Blade Force before returning to work for EA which was then followed by a six year career with Sony as a Lead Tools Programmer.

He now works at Google where me makes the Web "a better platform for games and game makers."

"Bill has had a huge influence on my career," said industry veteran Will Wright. "Pinball Construction Set was the first game that introduced me to the idea of constructive games and systemic thinking. I doubt SimCity would have existed without it."

The Pioneer Award's previous and first inductee was David Crane, co-founder of Activision and creator of Pitfall and A Boy and his Blob.