Well-known game designer, programmer, software archivist and transgender trailblazer Rebecca Ann Heineman of north Texas, died Monday, Nov. 17, after announcing earlier this year she had been diagnosed with an aggressive adenocarcinoma affecting her lungs and liver. She was 62 years old.
Born Oct. 30, 1963, in Whittier, Calif., Heineman grew up fascinated by video games and technology. She made history by winning a national Space Invaders tournament in 1980, becoming the first U.S. national video game champion, launching a 40-plus-year-career that helped shape the modern gaming industry. She co-founded Interplay Productions —later Interplay Entertainment in 1983, taking on the role of lead programmer where sher worked on numerous landmarks games, including The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate and Dragon Wars, as well as ports and conversions for platforms such as Mac and 3DO.
Through the years she founded or co-founded other companies, including Logicware, Contraband Entertainment and Olde Sküül, and she applied her technical expertise on engine optimization and kernel code for major companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and Sony. Heineman had previously served on GLAAD’s Board of Directors, and was honored with Gayming Magazine’s Icon Award earlier this year.
In her personal life, Heineman transitioned to live as a woman in the early 2000s, adopting the name Rebecca Ann. She helped lay the foundations of role-playing videogames, broke ground as a trans woman in a male-dominated field, and ,as a board member of the Videogame History Museum, was committed to preservation of game history and the engineering craftsmanship of early consoles and computers.
She was preceded in death by her wife, fellow game-industry pioneer Jennell Jaquays who died in 2024. She is survived by five children.
