Rebecca Heineman

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Rebecca Ann Heineman (* thirtieth October 1963 in Los Angeles as William Heineman Salvador ) is an American computer game designer, programmer, and the first e-sports -Meisterin the world. She is a founding member of the video game companies Interplay Productions , Logicware, Contraband Entertainment and Olde Sküül.

Personal

Heineman was born William Salvador Heineman, called Bill, and grew up in Whittier, California . During her time at Interplay, she was nicknamed Burger Bill (today: Burger Becky) because, for budget reasons, she bought large quantities of cheap burgers from a local shop in Interplay's early years and ate them throughout the day in the office next to work. As she was increasingly unhappy with her maiden name, she was called by her nickname. In 2003, Heineman was diagnosed with gender identity disorder and began gender reassignment to women. Since then she has been called Rebecca Ann Heineman. She is married to the also transsexual designer Jennell Jaquays . She has five children and lives in El Cerrito , California .

plant

In 1980 Heineman took part in the regional tournament of a national Atari 2600 National Space Invaders Championship in Los Angeles. She won the competition and on November 10, 1980 in New York the championship of the five finalists. This makes her the first national video game tournament champion. She then worked as an author for the monthly magazine Electronic Games and as a consultant for the book "How to Master Video Games". After reverse engineering code from Atari 2600 games, Avalon Hill hired her as a programmer. She created a manual for the company's programming team, the studio's game engine, and the base code for several software projects, including her first own game, London Blitz. She moved to Boone, where she programmed the games Chuck Norris Superkicks and Robin Hood and acquired knowledge of programming Commodore 64, Apple II, VIC 20 and IBM PCs, video game hardware and video game design.

When Boone ceased operations in 1983, she founded the development studio Interplay Productions, later Interplay Entertainment, with Brian Fargo , Jay Patel and Troy Worrell . As a senior programmer for the company, she worked on Wasteland , The Bard's Tale, and Out of This World, as well as the Mac OS and 3DO ports of Wolfenstein 3D . She designed Dragon Wars in 1989 , which despite its innovations and meticulous design found poor sales. She also became known for customizing popular games on Apple IIGS, Macintosh, and many other platforms. In 1995 she left Interplay and used her money to start a new company called Logicware. Logicware released many Mac games, including Tempest 2000 and Half-Life , as well as build ports and drivers for Mac such as: B. Mac port for Quake II . In 1999 she founded Contraband Entertainment. Based on Logicware, Contraband developed several original games as well as ports for different platforms for other developers. The projects she leads include Myth III: Die Wolfszeit and Activision anthology as well as Mac OS ports for Aliens vs. Predator , Baldur's Gate 2 and Heroes of Might and Magic IV . During this time she also advised other companies: She worked as a senior engineer for Electronic Arts, improved the engine code for Barking Lizards Technologies and Ubisoft, optimized the code for Sensory Sweep Studios, acted as a senior software architect for Bloomberg LP and Amazon . She provided training on Xbox 360 development for the Microsoft development studios and worked at Sony on the kernel code for PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 4 . Since 2011 she has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Video Game History Museum and a member of the Board of Directors of the LGBTQ + organization GLAAD . Contraband was dissolved in 2013 and Heineman founded the new company Olde Sküül in El Cerrito together with Jennell Jaquays , Maurine Starkey and Susan Manley .

Games (selection)

Awards

  • 1980: First national video game tournament champion for winning the National Space Invaders Championship
  • multiple awards for Sailor Ranko, a Sailor Moon-based fanfiction
  • 2017: Induction into the International Video Game Hall of Fame

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biography Rebecca Heineman. In: Olde Sküül. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Matt Barton: The Burger Speaks: An Interview With An Archmage, Page 1 of 7 . In: Gamasutra . December 27, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  3. ↑ Dawn Ennis: This Year's Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Who's Who. In: Advocate. April 1, 2015, accessed August 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Heineman, Rebecca
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Burger Becky (nickname); Burger Bill (nickname); Heineman, Bill; Heineman, William Salvador (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer game designer and programmer
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH los Angeles