Stevie Case
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Stevana "Stevie" Case (born 1976–1977)<ref name=":1" /> is an American businesswoman. She is known for competing in the first-person shooter game Quake in the late 1990s, as well as contributing professionally to the video game industry.
Competing under the alias KillCreek, she was one of the first notable female esports players, gaining recognition for beating Quake designer John Romero in a Quake deathmatch in 1997. She was the first professional gamer signed to the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL).
Case worked for Ion Storm between 1997 and 2001, conducting quality assurance and level design. She left the company to manage Monkeystone Games with former Ion Storm employees Romero and Tom Hall. After a stint at Warner Bros. managing the production of mobile games, she began working at various companies in business development and sales.
Early life
[edit]Case was raised in Olathe, Kansas. Her parents are a science teacher and a social worker,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> and she has a younger brother named Andy.<ref name="VanityFair_Kushner2022">Template:Cite magazine</ref> As a child, she enjoyed playing computer games. Her first gaming experiences were with Lode Runner and Joust on an Apple IIe computer her father bought when she was in second grade.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":9" />
Case attended Olathe East High School from 1991 to 1994.<ref name=":8">Template:Cite court</ref> As the student government president,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> she was one of the plaintiffs in the 1995 court case Case v. Unified School District No. 233.<ref name=":8" /> During the trial, students and parents in Olathe successfully challenged the school district's decision to ban Annie on my Mind from the school library.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Scales2009">Template:Cite book</ref> Case later attended the University of Kansas in hopes of getting into law school.<ref name=":0" />Template:Rp
Career
[edit]Professional Quake player and John Romero deathmatch
[edit]While at the University of Kansas as a freshman studying political science, Case enjoyed playing Doom and Doom II with her circle of friends.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref> Through her then-boyfriend, Tom "Entropy" Kimzey, she became interested in playing Quake competitively. Case joined Kimzey's team, Impulse 9, and began competing under the name KillCreek.<ref name=":0" />Template:Rp This alias was taken from the Lawrence, Kansas band Kill Creek, who had a member Case was friends with.<ref name="VanityFair_Kushner2022" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Impulse 9 competed in the Quake competitive league Clanring, and won the T1 championship event in 1996.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
After a few months of competing and making a name for herself, Case traveled to Dallas on a pilgrimage to meet some of the developers of her favorite first-person-shooter computer games.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="VanityFair_Kushner2022" /> During her trip, she got the chance to play a Quake deathmatch against the game's designer, John Romero, but was beaten by him in a close game.<ref name=":0" />Template:Rp After Romero put up a web page jokingly insulting her skill at the game, Case publicly demanded a rematch with him.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite web</ref> While Case initially struggled in the best-of-three rematch, she rallied back to win the first round 25–19, and went on to ultimately defeat Romero.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> As punishment, Romero agreed to set up a web page praising Case.<ref name=":1" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Case was twenty years old at the time she won the rematch in 1997,<ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp and beating one of the co-creators of Quake at his own game brought her a lot of publicity. She gained a sponsor in computer mouse manufacturer SpaceTec IMC that year,<ref name=":4" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":9">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and her victory against Romero received coverage in Rolling Stone.<ref name="JonW.2006">Template:Cite book</ref> Angel Munoz, the founder of the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), convinced Case to join his league in July 1997, becoming its first signed professional gamer.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":5">Template:Cite web</ref> She eventually became one of the league's original founders.<ref name=":6" />Template:Rp Case competed in the first all-female Quake tournament that year, coming in second behind Kornelia Takacs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> With the stability of sponsors and a $1000 monthly stipend from the CPL, Case decided to drop out of university and move to Dallas in the middle of 1997;<ref name="VanityFair_Kushner2022" /><ref name=":5" /> she said that while she had a passion for political science, she "was not excited about the day-to-day aspects of politics or practicing law."<ref name=":2" />
Transition to game design
[edit]While playing professionally, Case began looking at game design as a potential career, stating, "I love games, and I love competition—but having no choice but to play the same game day-in and day-out with all sorts of pressure attached just didn't suit my nature."<ref name=":5" /> According to Case, she did freelance game design work from her Dallas home for two years after university, using free design tools that she downloaded.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp One of the first game levels she designed was for SiN: Wages of Sin (1999).<ref name=":5" /> Setting up a small studio called Primitive Earthling Games, she and some friends created a Quake II add-on called Vengeance and submitted it to WizardWorks.<ref name=":10">Template:Cite web</ref> However, it never became available for purchase due to publishing delays.<ref name=":5" /><ref>Template:Cite interview</ref> Between 1998 and 2000, Case authored three strategy guide books for Prima Games: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (1998), Buck Bumble (1998), and Daikatana (2000).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She also contributed to their Quake II strategy guide.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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Case was hired at Ion Storm in the summer of 1997 as a video game tester.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":10" /> After numerous members of the Daikatana development team left during the game's troubled production, Case accepted Romero's job offer to become a level designer in November 1998.<ref name="VanityFair_Kushner2022" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref> Case helped design levels for Daikatana<ref name=":11">Template:Cite web</ref> and Anachronox (2001).<ref name=":12">Template:Cite web</ref> It was during this time period that Case began to date Romero. According to David Kushner's Masters of Doom, it was at this point when Case "radically reinvented herself" by losing weight, bleaching her hair, and undergoing breast augmentation surgery.<ref name=":0" />Template:Rp Case received further press coverage, appearing on the March 2000 cover of PC Accelerator,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and being featured as one of the "Next Game Gods" in the November 2000 issue of PC Gamer.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> She was approached by Playboy to appear in a nude pictorial, based on an interview she did in the Los Angeles Times. The pictorial was released online in May 2000.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> When asked about how she changed after moving to Dallas and making video games a career, Case responded:
Making the leap to games helped me to realize that the only way to be truly happy is to live by your own rules, not limited by outside expectations. I love my job, found a wonderful boyfriend and truly found myself through games.<ref name=":2" />
Case was still involved in the Cyberathlete Professional League in some capacity. She eventually transitioned into being CPL's "Master of Ceremonies",<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and in 1999, Case joined the CPL's board of directors.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Case left Ion Storm in January 2001<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> to follow Romero to his new company, Monkeystone Games, which was founded in August 2001.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="Ramsay2015">Template:Cite book</ref> Monkeystone was a mobile game development company formed from Romero's interest in mobile games, sparked by him wanting to move away from the lengthy development cycles of big-budget computer games.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Case worked as a producer for Monkeystone's first game, Hyperspace Delivery Boy!, and also created the music and sound effects.<ref name=":13">Template:Cite interview</ref> She also was credited on titles like Monkeystone's Red Faction port for the N-Gage.<ref name=":14">Template:Cite web</ref> After leaving Monkeystone Games, Case became a senior project manager for Warner Bros. Online's mobile group.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Sales and business development
[edit]According to Case, she decided at this point to slowly transition out of working in the game development industry, stating in an interview:
There was a ton of harassment and hate and sexism and abuse. People would send me hate email all the time. ... The benefit of connecting with people was so drowned out by how bad it felt to be in the spotlight.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite web</ref>
Case recalled receiving the opportunity to leave game development when one of her contacts approached her about a potential junior sales position at his workplace.<ref name=":7" /> After leaving Warner Bros., Case was employed at Tira Wireless in sales and business development.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Afterwards, she held a position with Spleak Media Network, where she was a director of product management.
In September 2008, she was vice president of business development and sales for fatfoogoo, an online commerce company.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> Case also served as Senior Director of Business Development at Live Gamer,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and joined PlaySpan in 2010 as vice president of sales.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> PlaySpan was acquired by Visa in 2011.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On March 1, 2010, NewWorld, the former parent company of the CPL, announced that it had signed a two-year agreement with Stevie Case for the production of a new podcast show called Stevie FTW.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to the website's RSS feed, the last podcast was uploaded on March 11, 2011,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the last social media update was on the same date.
After working as the vice president of growth at San Francisco-based startup Layer,<ref name=":7" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in 2022 Case became the Chief Revenue Officer at computer security firm Vanta.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She is also listed as a participant in SheEO, a nonprofit supporting the funding of female entrepreneurs,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as well as the female investor group 37 Angels.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Personal life
[edit]Case dated Quake player Tom "Entropy" Kimzey, who was also a University of Kansas student and a member of Impulse 9.<ref name=":0" />Template:Rp According to the June 1997 issue of Spin, they were involved romantically until the spring of 1997.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Case had also dated game developer Tom Mustaine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Soon after defeating John Romero in a Quake deathmatch, she and Romero started dating. Case and Romero moved in together in 1999, but their relationship ended in May 2003.<ref name="VanityFair_Kushner2022" /><ref name=":6" />Template:Rp
Case went on to marry a director of product development at THQ, and had a child with him.<ref name="VanityFair_Kushner2022" /><ref name=":6" />Template:Rp In a 2016 interview, Case stated that she had been a single parent with full custody of her child for eight years.<ref name=":7" />
Works
[edit]| Year | Company | Title | Role/Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Template:N/a | SiN | Special Thanks<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| 1999 | Ritual Entertainment / 2015 Games | Sin: Wages of Sin | Additional Level Design<ref>Template:Cite video game</ref> |
| 2000 | Ion Storm | Daikatana | Level Designer<ref name=":11" /> |
| 2001 | Anachronox | Additional Level Design Cleanup<ref name=":12" /> | |
| Monkeystone Games | Hyperspace Delivery Boy! | Producer, Music and SFX<ref name=":13" /> | |
| 2003 | Red Faction | Creative Commando<ref name=":14" /> |