"The very first video game champion" and co-founder of Interplay, pivotal in the history of Baldur's Gate and Fallout, opens GoFundMe for "aggressive" cancer – already raising over $50,000

Rebecca Heineman, a games industry veteran of over 40 years, has opened a GoFundMe page to crowdfund support for her recent and "aggressive" cancer diagnosis.

After two days, the campaign has already raised $51,239 across 888 donations, clearing its initial $50,000 goal (as PC Gamer spotted) and inching towards a more comprehensive $75,000 goal.

Heineman said she was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma affecting her lungs and liver after an emergency room visit led to an array of testing. Her insurance only covers some of these essential treatments, so she says "I'm getting huge bills" already, ahead of chemotherapy treatment set to begin today, October 6.

"This is the fight for my life," she writes. "Please help me. I want to keep creating games and comics and I need your support to beat this cancer."

Heineman is known to many as, in her words, "the very first video game champion" – that is, the winner of the 1980 New York Space Invaders championship, the first official event to crown a national victor.

To many others, however, she's a storied programmer and one of the co-founders of Interplay Productions, a studio that played a pivotal role in the history of RPGs like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and many more series.

Heineman got started in the industry with the likes of Robin Hood and The Bard's Tale, and went on to be credited as the creator of Bard's Tale 3 and Dragon Wars, per Moby Games.

She worked as a programmer on Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, famously brought Doom to the 3DO under nightmarish conditions and constraints, and just this year was hailed as the savior of Fallout history after confirming that the RPG's source code did indeed exist after co-creator Tim Cain said he was ordered to destroy his personal archives of the game.

A donor comment on her GoFundMe page, from Willie Yeo, celebrates some of the games she worked on. "You are living with cancer; And one day, you’ll be living without it!" Yeo writes. "I enjoyed all those Apple IIGS games growing up: Bard's Tale (1-3), Wolf 3D, Tass Times in Tone Town, Out of This World."

You can donate here if you want to contribute to Heineman's cancer fund.

Earlier this year, fans raised over $140,000 on the GoFundMe for prolific VA and Fallout icon Wes Johnson.