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Rebecca Heineman

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Rebecca Heineman
Heineman at the
2024 Game Developers Conference
Born(1963-10-30)October 30, 1963
Whittier, California, U.S.
DiedNovember 17, 2025(2025-11-17) (aged 62)
Rockwall, Texas, U.S.
Other namesBurger
Occupations
EmployerOlde Sküül
Known forThe Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate
Dragon Wars
Spouse
​
(died 2024)​
Children3

Rebecca Ann Heineman (October 30, 1963 – November 17, 2025) was an American video game designer and programmer. Heineman was a founder or co-founder of video game companies Interplay Productions, Logicware, Contraband Entertainment, and Olde Sküül. She was the chief executive officer of Olde Sküül from 2013 until her death in 2025.

Early life

Rebecca Ann Heineman was born William Salvador Heineman[1] on October 30, 1963,[‡ 1][‡ 2] and raised in Whittier, California.[‡ 3] When she was young, she could not afford to purchase games for her Atari 2600, so she taught herself how to copy cartridges and built herself a sizable pirated video game collection. Eventually, she moved from copying games to reverse engineering the console's code to understand how the games were made.[2] In 1980, Heineman and a friend traveled to Los Angeles to compete in a regional qualifying round of a national Atari 2600 Space Invaders championship. Although she did not expect to place among the top 100 contestants, she won the competition. Later that year, she also won the championship in New York. Heineman is hence the first champion of a national U.S. video game tournament.[2]

Career

After she won the tournament, Heineman was offered a writing job for monthly magazine Electronic Games and a consultancy job for a book called How to Master Video Games. During this time, she mentioned to one magazine publisher that she had reverse-engineered Atari 2600 code, and the publisher arranged a meeting between Heineman and the owners of game publisher Avalon Hill. As she met with them, she was hired as a programmer instantaneously. Heineman, aged 16 at the time, moved across the U.S. for her new job, canceling her plans to acquire a high school diploma. At Avalon Hill, Heineman created a manual for the company's programming team, the studio's game engine, and the base code for several software projects, including her own first game, London Blitz, before leaving the company.[2]

Heineman returned to California to work for another developer, Boone Corporation. For Boone, she programmed the games Chuck Norris Superkicks and Robin Hood, acquiring knowledge of programming for Commodore 64, Apple II, VIC-20, and IBM PC, of video game hardware, as well as video game design. Boone ceased operations in 1983, so Heineman joined Brian Fargo, Jay Patel and Troy Worrell to establish Interplay Productions. Heineman acted as a programmer for the company, working on Wasteland, The Bard's Tale, various ports of Out of This World,[3][‡ 4] and the Mac OS, 3DO and Apple IIGS ports of Wolfenstein 3D.[2]

Heineman went on to design The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate, Dragon Wars, Tass Times in Tonetown, Borrowed Time, Mindshadow, The Tracer Sanction, and programmed various ports of Battle Chess,[4] among others, for Interplay. As the company grew to more than 500 employees, Heineman, wishing to return to her small-team roots, left the company in 1995 and co-founded Logicware, where she acted as chief technology officer and lead programmer. Aside from original games such as Defiance, Heineman oversaw the company's porting activities, which included Out of This World, Killing Time, Shattered Steel, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and a canceled Mac OS port of Half-Life.[2]

In 1999, Heineman founded Contraband Entertainment and served as its chief executive officer. The company developed several original games alongside ports to various platforms for other developers. Projects led by Heineman include Activision Anthology, and Mac OS ports for Aliens vs. Predator, Baldur's Gate II and Heroes of Might and Magic IV. During this time, she also provided consultancy work directly for other companies: she acted as "Senior Engineer III" for Electronic Arts, upgraded engine code for Barking Lizards Technologies and Ubisoft, optimized code for Sensory Sweep Studios, acted as senior software architect for Bloomberg L.P. and Amazon, provided training on Xbox 360 development for Microsoft's development studios, and worked on the kernel code for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 4 at Sony.

At Microsoft, Heineman also worked on low level code and optimizations for the Kinect[5]. During her tenure at Amazon, Heineman was, in addition to her technological role, also the "Transgender Chair" of Amazon's LGBTQ+ group, known as Glamazon.[2]. More recently, Heineman worked on self driving cars at Cruise and worked at Roblox[6]

Contraband was wound down in 2013, and Heineman founded a new company, Olde Sküül, together with Jennell Jaquays, Maurine Starkey, and Susan Manley. At Olde Sküül, Heineman acted as CEO.[2] Heineman acted as lead programmer for the Battle Chess: Game of Kings.[7]

Personal life and death

In a segment in the documentary series High Score, Heineman said she was drawn to video games at a young age as "allowed me to be myself" and "allowed me to play as female".[8] As early as at the founding of Interplay, Heineman had a concern with her birthname; at that time, Interplay's founders were not taking a salary, and so to sustain herself, she bought a larger number of cheap hamburgers from a nearby hamburger stand and kept them in her desk, which led to the nickname "Burger", a name she preferred to be called by over the next twenty years rather than her birth name.[1] Around 2003, Heineman was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and began to transition to a woman.[1][‡ 5] She formally changed her given name to Rebecca Ann.[1][9] Following the transition, Heineman lived as a lesbian.[1] As of 2020, Heineman resided in Heath, Texas.[‡ 6]

Heineman was married to Jennell Jaquays, a fellow transgender woman.[1][10] Jaquays died in 2024.[11] Heineman had three children from an earlier marriage that ended in divorce.[12]

In October 2025, Heineman revealed she had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer, and had begun treatment the preceding month.[13][14] She had started a GoFundMe to raise funds for her medical treatments, but by November 16, told her followers that she had been told her condition was terminal, and requested the funds be used towards her funeral.[8][15] She died in Rockwall, Texas, on November 17, 2025, at the age of 62.[8][15][16] Tributes were given by industry figures who had worked with her, including Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo and game designers Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone.[17]

Board service

Heineman was part of the advisory board of the Videogame History Museum from 2011, and was part of the board of directors of LGBTQ+ organization GLAAD.[2]

Accolades

Sailor Ranko, a Sailor Moon and Ranma ½–based fanfiction comic by Heineman based on an earlier work written by Duncan Zillman, has won multiple awards.[2][18] In 2017, she was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame.[2] Heineman won the Gayming Icon Award at the 2025 Gayming Awards.[19]

Games

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Barton, Matt (December 27, 2010). "The Burger Speaks: An Interview With An Archmage, Page 1 of 7". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on February 4, 2019. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Marie, Meagan (December 4, 2018). Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play. Dorling Kindersley. pp. 32–33. ISBN 9780241395066.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Stilphen, Scott (2006). "Rebecca Heineman interview". Atari Compendium.
  4. ^ "DOOMed to Fail: A Horror Story With Rebecca Heineman". CoRecursive Podcast.
  5. ^ "Matt Chat 86: Bard's Tale IV and Wasteland II with Rebecca Heineman". YouTube. December 19, 2010.
  6. ^ "(Soundbite) No School like the Olde Sküül - Rebecca Ann Heineman - Part 2 of 2".
  7. ^ "Battle Chess: Game of Kings details". Metacritic.com.
  8. ^ a b c Edwards, Benj (November 19, 2025). "Celebrated game developer Rebecca Heineman dies at age 62". Ars Technica. Retrieved November 19, 2025.
  9. ^ Barton, Matt (February 22, 2008). Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games. CRC Press. p. 197. ISBN 9781439865248.
  10. ^ Ennis, Dawn (April 1, 2015). "This Year's Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Who's Who". Advocate. Archived from the original on November 16, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  11. ^ Slotnik, Daniel E. (February 1, 2024). "Jennell Jaquays, Who Unlocked Fantasy Dungeons for Gamers, Dies at 67". New York Times. Archived from the original on February 1, 2024.
  12. ^ Williams, Alex (December 4, 2025). "Rebecca Heineman, Transgender Video Game Pioneer, Dies at 62". The New York Times. Retrieved December 5, 2025.
  13. ^ Litchfield, Ted (October 5, 2025). "First US videogame champion, legendary programmer, and Interplay co-founder Rebecca Heineman is fundraising to deal with the costs of an aggressive cancer diagnosis". PC Gamer. Retrieved October 6, 2025.
  14. ^ Masters, Catherine (October 7, 2025). "Industry Legend Rebecca Heineman Reveals Cancer Diagnosis, Launches GoFundMe Campaign". The A.V. Club. Retrieved November 19, 2025.
  15. ^ a b Masters, Catherine (November 18, 2025). "R.I.P. Rebecca Heineman, legendary game designer and trailblazer". The A.V. Club. Retrieved November 19, 2025.
  16. ^ a b Litchfield, Ted (November 17, 2025). "Legendary game designer, programmer, Space Invaders champion, and LGBTQ trailblazer Rebecca Heineman has died". PC Gamer. Retrieved November 17, 2025.
  17. ^ Purchese, Robert (November 18, 2025). ""One of the most brilliant programmers around" – tributes pour in as Interplay co-founder Rebecca Heineman passes away". Eurogamer. Retrieved November 18, 2025.
  18. ^ Rebecca, Heineman. "The People Who Bring You Sailor Ranko". Sailor Ranko. Archived from the original on November 21, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2025.
  19. ^ McEvoy, Sophie (July 9, 2025). "Dragon Age: The Veilguard Wins Game of the Year at Gayming Awards 2025". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved July 9, 2025.
  20. ^ a b c d e Drury, Paul (May 2019). "In the chair with... Rebecca Heineman". Retro Gamer. No. 192. Future plc. p. 92.
  21. ^ Kindig, Randy; Savetz, Kay; Arnold, Brad (July 19, 2015). "Rebecca Heineman, Racing Destruction Set and Mindshadow". ANTIC: The Atari 8-bit Podcast (Podcast).
  22. ^ a b Barnes, Adam (September 2015). "The History of The Bard's tale". Retro Gamer. No. 145. Future plc. pp. 50–57.
  23. ^ Johnson, Shakeena (May 30, 2021). "Seven trailblazing LGBTQ+ pioneers who helped to shape video gaming as we know it". PinkNews.
  24. ^ Vila, Ezequiel (July 2022). "Te Falta Rock". Revista Replay (in Spanish). No. 35. pp. 12–13. ISSN 2545-739X.
  25. ^ White, Lewis (May 2, 2025). "Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 source code isn't actually lost, reveals former Interplay founder, despite orders to destroy all assets". VideoGamer.com.
  26. ^ a b Werner, Adrian (October 6, 2025). "'To jest walka o moje życie'. Rebecca Heineman, legenda branży i twórczyni The Bard's Tale 3, prosi fanów o pomoc" ['This is the fight of my life.' Rebecca Heineman, industry legend and creator of The Bard's Tale 3, is asking fans for help.]. Gry-Online (in Polish).
  27. ^ Cork, Jeff (August 8, 2014). "Classic Gaming Expo Growing For 2014". Game Informer.
  28. ^ a b Cohen, Peter (November 1999). "Games up Velocity". Macworld. International Data Group. p. 24. ISSN 1356-9503.
  29. ^ Vargas, Lulio (January 18, 2002). "Wabbits unmasked, Hexen II goes Beta". MacGamer.com. Archived from the original on February 27, 2002.
  30. ^ Pitfall: The Lost Expedition (PDF) (manual). Ignited Minds, LLC. 2004. p. 29.
  31. ^ Niffler Ltd. (May 29, 2015). Chip's Challenge 1 (Windows). Level/area: Credits. Windows Guru: Rebecca Ann Heineman
  32. ^ Hepler, Jennifer Brandes, ed. (2017). "Rebecca Ann Heineman". Women in Game Development: Breaking the Glass Level-Cap. CRC Press. pp. 15–22. ISBN 978-1-1389-4792-4.

Primary sources

In the text, these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):

  1. ^ Heineman, Rebecca [@burgerbecky] (May 5, 2021). "57 here" (Tweet). Archived from the original on May 5, 2021. Retrieved March 24, 2024 – via Twitter.
  2. ^ Heineman, Rebecca [@burgerbecky] (October 29, 2023). "October 30th is my birthday" (Tweet). Archived from the original on March 24, 2024. Retrieved March 24, 2024 – via Twitter.
  3. ^ "Rebecca_Heineman". Olde Sküül. Archived from the original on February 3, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
  4. ^ "Burgertime 8/9/2015: Out of This World". Youtube.com. August 16, 2015.
  5. ^ Heineman, Rebecca (March 29, 2005). "A new day in a new life". LiveJournal. Archived from the original on August 18, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  6. ^ Heineman, Rebecca (May 29, 2020). "I'm in Heath Texas". X. Retrieved November 17, 2025.
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