Rebecca Heineman, the pioneering video game programmer, has sadly passed away at the age of 62.

Back in 1980, Heineman became the national champion of an Atari 2600 Space Invaders tournament and is thus considered to be the first ever champion of a video game tournament.

Heineman went on to have a very impressive career in the video games industry, beginning with a writing job at Electronic Games magazine. She would then go on to program several games for several formats in the 1980s, co-founding the company Interplay in 1983.

Some of the games Rebecca Heineman worked on include The Bard’s Tale, Battle Chess, and the well-received 3DO port of Doom.

Heineman founded her most recent company, Olde Sküül, in 2013.
In October 2025, Heineman revealed she had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer.

On November 16th, Heineman posted “Prognosis, 1-4 days. Time to make peace,” on X, and she passed away on November 17, 2025.

A GoFundMe page set up to raise funds for Heineman’s treatment remains open to raise funds for her funeral.

Rebecca Heineman was a genuine video games legend who did an immeasurable amount of good  for our hobby, and all of us at Retro News would like to pass on our condolences to her friends and family.