Industry vet Mark Cerny to be inducted into AIAS Hall of Fame

By Stephany Nunneley

It has been announced that Mark Cerny will be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.

Come February 18, Cerny will become the 13th member of the AIAS when Insomniac’s Brian Allgeier presents the award.

“Mark Cerny is the closest we have come to a modern-day Da Vinci,” said Joseph Olin, president of the AIAS. “What he does isn’t restricted to a single aspect of game creation, he really is a Renaissance man. He is a diversely accomplished game designer, producer, programmer and technologist, fluent in Japanese and one of the foremost Western experts on the Japanese game market. He’s also one of the only top-level independents in a business dominated by institutions.

“The projects that he has contributed to have been phenomenally successful, with sales of almost two billion dollars and over a dozen titles each exceeding two million units in sales.”

Cerny’s been a major influence to many developers over the years like Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, and has even played a roll in the creation of games like Kid Chameleon MotorStorm, Heavenly Sword, God of War 3, Sonic 2, Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Resistance II, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and Spyro the Dragon.

“Mark has left an indelible mark on all of the games he’s been a part of, the developers that he’s collaborated with, and most importantly the individuals that he’s worked along-side of,” said Evan Wells.

Cerny will join an elite group of other interactive entertainment industry luminaries in the AIAS Hall of Fame: Peter Molyneux, Yu Suzuki, Will Wright, John Carmack, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Richard Garriott, Michael Morhaime and others.

The ceremony will be hosted by comedian Jay Mohr, and will take place during the 2010 D.I.C.E. Summit.

Full PR is through here, in lovely PDF format, via Joystiq.