Calling Burger Becky just the winner of an eSports tournament is underselling how badass this woman really is. Nothing against the post, I like it because it shows that we’ve always been here, but Burger Becky is a straight LEGEND in gaming.
So first, why am I calling her Burger Becky? Because that was her office nickname because she had a drawer in her desk specifically to keep hamburgers. That’s not what makes her legendary, but still is.
Then Rebecca was one of the founding members of Interplay. As in OG Fallout Interplay. She was one of the lead developers of Wasteland, the Bard’s Tale series, Out of This World and many others. After founding interplay, she went on to do a lot of port work. Her work on the 3DO version of DOOM is an insane story, Stop Skeletons From Fighting has an amazing video on it.
Later in life, she moved onto consultant work. From Wikipedia “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.” Nowadays, she runs a company called olde skuul, probably best known for porting Descent 1 & 2 to modern machines.
I’m skipping over a lot of things because her legacy is fucking huge. An extremely famous game developer who has been extremely important to the history of the craft.
Thanks for the context! So great
So first, why am I calling her Burger Becky? Because that was her office nickname because she had a drawer in her desk specifically to keep hamburgers. That’s not what makes her legendary, but still is.
Unless that drawer had a built in cooler… yikes, did Burger Becky get food poisoning a lot??
Quote from an interview with her
Becky: And then when we had dinner with the family, I was the one serving the meals while everybody else was eating around there. And of course I didn’t get a plate. And then by the time it was all done, I would eat the leftovers. And of course if they saw me eating the leftovers, I would get punished.
Adam: As an adult, she’s never totally gotten past this food insecurity. Coworkers would spread rumors about her hiding burgers in her desks to nibble on when no one was looking.
Becky: Honestly, there’s truth to that. I was not picky about the condition of the food I was eating because I was conditioned from my earliest memory to the time I got out of that hell hole that food is life. Don’t be picky about it, because otherwise starving is your only other option.
Brutal! That legitimately makes sense even though the food going bad still makes me nervous. However, mild food poisoning can be better than completely starving, I suppose. What an awful upbringing to be put through. It’s always amazing the travesties some amazing people have pushed through to achieve so much.
Descent 1 & 2
There’s a Descent 2?! And 3!?
(Also, I didn’t know Interplay was a well known company. I had a whole set of Interplay CDs I used to play as a kid. Fond memories. Descent, Conquest of the New World, Whiplash…)
Earthworm Jim!
