Matt Chat 82: Interview with Rebecca "Burger" Heineman Pt. 1

[eepberries]

sweet flat eric doll!

[MetalJesusRocks]

Man, looking at that Wall O Games behind you, sure takes me back! It's great that you kept all of the boxes

[SeanJTharpe]

Nice shirt, I'm wearing the same one right now! LOL! Great interviews! Keep them coming! If you could get one with John Carmack somehow, that would be amazing!

[Cha4k]

Should change the name of the cake to "Death by Diabetes"

[NinjaRunningWild]

Nice Maiden shirt.

[internationalfarmer]

I had envisioned her as a young lady during her stories.

[boson360]

Great interview. Maiden shirt. Thumbs up for that!

[umbalaba]

Matt, I simply cannot believe all the awesome people you do these very interesting interviews with. Thank you very much! Perhaps you should at some point consider releasing this material on DvD. It really is important historical material for gaming historians. Perhaps it could be done via lulu.com or some other self-publishing site, so it will neither cost you anything much nor burden you with shipping off stuff around the world and the like. Just a thought.

[redcat608]

I love Matt Chat! 

[interghost]

Sorry just catching up with your videos mate. Still loving the stuff and a very cool interview!! Keep them coming please ;o)

[blacklily8]

@interghost Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the interviews.

[markvergeer]

Finally got around to watching this video. Great interview. Thanks to you and Rebecca for doing this! It provides a wonderful insight.

[blacklily8]

@markvergeer Yes, you really can't beat getting this kind of info from the horse's mouth. 

[eriqchangstudio]

What an inspiring game developer, so full of passion and an obvious love for gaming. Absolutely love this - much respect to Miss Heineman.

[blacklily8]

@eriqchangstudio Agreed. It's great when a developer obviously loves gaming as much as we do. I think it results in better games.

[Hal566]

im curious about the death by chocolate cake... not sure if im game though

[endofthelinejoel]

Thanks for the interview Matt. Best one so far.

I did not know anything about Rebecca, but this has educated me. She had some ace coding skills, not to mention amazing get-up-and-go attitude for such a young kid programmer. Respect due!

Plus, she comes across as a pleasant personality in this interview.

.

The days of young kids being interested in hardware hacking, and coding in assembly language is sadly long behind us. A pity. Now all they know is how to turn on the Xbox 360 or the PS3.

[blacklily8]

@endofthelinejoel I couldn't have put it better. It's depressing that the age of the hacker is behind us. The systems back then were much more open to tinkering than the ones now.

[Celeon999A]

All this talk about Amiga makes me get nostalgic again. *Lights another candle on the Commodore altar*

[blacklily8]

@Celeon999A Light another one for me, friend.

[satancouldkillyounow]

Electronics Games magazine was amazing. I had the "how to beat video games" books, too. Crazy!

She's cool!!!

[nicholsml]

Great stuff as always :)

[tgaskill]

Great interview! A very lively person! Remember playing Avalon Hill board games, never the computer games (not sure where they were ported to). We sure could use some Chuck Norris computer games these days. For example, Chuck Norris Black Ops, Battlefield Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris Fallout, etc....

[marcusmalone]

(sigh) Another great vid, another little peice of hitherto unrecorded history! Does youtube allow you to remove comments from vids? Been so long since I posted, I can't remember. You may want to have a browse through some here and consider it!

[blacklily8]

@marcusmalone I could delete them, but usually just use the thumbs down icon. I want them to know that those comments aren't popular.

[marcusmalone]

@blacklily8 Alas, the trials of increasing one's audience!

[LordDreagon]

@Joeyboots80

How 'bout if the person is a Nazi in their personal life, but they make great contributions? Don't tell me you are one of those people who believe in this tolerance nonsense.

[Joeyboots80]

@LordDreagon Of course not. If you have Nazi or other Racist/Xenophobic beliefs in your personal life, then that is your own business. It is when these beliefs or practices affect or harm other people is when it is a problem. And I would be as ignorant as the people I try to enlighten, If I were to say that hateful people have never contributed to the world. You have the right to say whatever racist nonsense you want on here, As well as I have the right to criticize you for it.

[satancouldkillyounow]

@Joeyboots80 Spreading bleeding heart ideology harms people and is extremely ignorant.

[Joeyboots80]

@satancouldkillyounow Wow, just Wow. And spreading racist/bigoted ideology doesn't harm people, and isn't extremely ignorant? Is this Bizarro world? Is it opposite day?

[satancouldkillyounow]

@Joeyboots80 I didn't say that. Clearly you have some issues in reading. My guess it is some form of projection. You just came over from the media matters website charged up with fake outrage and here is a guy saying bleeding hearts are idiots. OMG! He must be supporting nazis!

Uh, no bud. Racist ideology is no good. However, reality isn't bad and a lot of idiots like to claim things are racist when they aren't.

Want to go into Detroit wearing a tux at 2AM? Go right ahead, pal.

[Joeyboots80]

@satancouldkillyounow I apologize. I thought that you were coming to the defense of the other poster. And you are correct by stating that reality isn't that bad. I let my emotion get the best of me, and that's exactly what most of the jerks who say hateful things on an anonymous place like youtube are trying to encourage. I would also like to say that I believe in respecting others as equals, and not special treatment or coddling of any certain types or groups of people. I am not naive.

[Joeyboots80]

@satancouldkillyounow I am as against special, or "bleeding heart" treatment as you are. Giving one group special treatment is equivalent to racism, because other groups are being left out of the equation. I am also against exclusionary treatment on the other hand. I originally responded to the individual that thought it was necessary to mention how much he/she hated Jews on a video game show comment box. I should have said nothing. I am sorry. Also, I have no idea what "Media Matters" is.

[someonefromsomewere1]

Isn't it amazing how all these programmers/developers have photographic memory.

[blacklily8]

@someonefromsomewere1 A great memory helps with so many things, but programming it seems vital. If you can't remember another part of your program, it will be a lot harder to get it done.

[NinjaRunningWild]

@blacklily8 That's actually inaccurate. Programs grow too large to realistically be able to do that.  What's better practice is to use meaningful naming conventions and organization. That with a good search feature is all you need. The reason programmers usually remember specificities of coding is due to the intensity of thought during solving of a tough problem and the unbridled satisfaction of solving it. I can still remember vividly problems I've solved well over a decade ago from this.

[RaidenfighterKirkov]

Thank you Matt for this video it was an amazing story. Keep up the splendid work.

Greetings vom Vienna.

RFK

[blacklily8]

@RaidenfighterKirkov Wow, Vienna! I've always wanted to visit that beautiful city.

[vidium]

Love this episode wow to be able to program games at 14. Awesome I would have love to be able to make games my self. Awesome episode my friend

[blacklily8]

@vidium No kidding, right? Amazing what these youngsters could do. No wonder California was such a cool place to be in the 80s.

[necromancer1983x]

Another interesting episode, looking forward to the next one. Just thinking about the cake she described made me a bit sick and I love chocolate!

[blacklily8]

@necromancer1983x I guess there's a reason she calls it DEATH by chocolate. :)

[Joeyboots80]

Love the Iron Maiden shirt! Made me throw up horns by instinct when I saw it.

[blacklily8]

@Joeyboots80 Up the irons!

[NostalgiaKing]

Great interview, can't wait for part 2!

[blacklily8]

@NostalgiaKing It's here! :)

[andlinux]

I loved that story, she is also a good storyteller.

I had a lot of fun in the past with the games of Interplay, like MDK, Earthworm Jim, Descent, etc.

So she copied also videogames when she was younger, I did that to because we had no money ;)

[blacklily8]

@andlinux I didn't even realize it was possible to do what she did back then. Wish I had!

[shaurz]

Why is the first video in the Suggestions box "MTF Transsexuals"? WTF?

[necromancer1983x]

@shaurz I was wondering the same thing :s

[Joeyboots80]

@shaurz Because the lady in this video used to be a man. She was born William Salvador Heineman. About a decade ago she started making the transition to female. She was a sufferer of gender identity disorder. This matters not though, It is the genius of this person that's important, not gender or sexual preference. And Heineman is one of the Pioneers of our beloved hobby.

[Taarnafeather]

I just had to eat a cake while watching this video! :)

Really great start of the interview, dear Matt.

[bewts420]

Another great video Matt.

[Sinekyre14]

Great as always. Interplay was the last of the great video game companies!

BY GAMERS FOR GAMERS!

[HardWarUK]

Why is it is it's a man, we talk about what he DID, and when it's a woman, we talk about what she looks likes, who she is, and so on, BEFORE we talk about what fantastic things she did? Most of the posts, so far, I find very disappointing.

Once again Matt, you show yourself to be the most professional video uploader on this site. Your work in bringing these people to us is as important as what they did to create gaming as we know it

[Joeyboots80]

@HardWarUK I agree completely. I don't get it why people can't just appreciate someone's contributions to the world, without worrying about their personal lives. Unfortunately there is a lot of idiots and children on youtube who can't handle reality.

[Borin81]

as mentioned, all is not what it seems with this lady, if you know what i mean.

one of the horses in the stable hides a meatloaf, if you get my hint.

there is a sausage in the pie.

[KabukiKid]

She's a fun interview. Can't wait for part 2, Matt! :-D I am really enjoying your interviews with the classic game creators! :-)

[rahxephonblack]

What a fascinating woman...I was glued to every word...quite a storyteller.

[RetroRoadshow]

Awesome vid Matt! I keep watching these interviews over and over. I learn something new every time.

[Joeyboots80]

@gutsygarrett Does it matter if she's Jewish?

[Joeyboots80]

@gutsygarrett Good for you. That's your problem.

[urizen123]

@AngryMrBubbles

"In November 2003, she was diagnosed with gender identity disorder and began transitioning to a woman."

- Wikipedia

[retromanpresents]

Not to brag or anything, but I have final frontier on vinyl record. :P