TDE EP38 - Atari and Bally Midway Game Designer Mark Pierce

The Ted Dabney Experience

Mark Pierce was a game designer at Atari and Bally Midway. We talk to him about the protracted development of Escape From The Planet of The Robot Monsters, the axonometric, somewhat baroque B-movie arcade adventure, and the conversely swift creation of the tile-stacking puzzler classic, KLAX. Pierce also shares some amusing anecdotes about scouting for muscular male models for the visually ground-breaking arcade beat-em-up, Pit Fighter, and provides us with a unique insight into why Atari faltered and ultimately folded in The Noughties.