Killcreek
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Queen of Quake Making A Killing

Originally from The Boston Globe 1997
Written by MICHAEL SAUNDERS

Some would say that Stevie Case misspent her youth at the computer by playing Quake, honing her rocket jumps and circle strafes.

Case, 20, can be found lurking in multiplayer games under the name ``KillCreek,'' displaying the moves she used to beat Quake creator John Romero in a one-on-one death match earlier this year. Those tactics - and that convincing victory - have won her a lucrative endorsement deal from a Lowell, Mass. game-controller manufacturer, Spacetec IMC.

Their grandparents might have played marbles or mumbletypeg, but Case and many of the on-line gaming elite are part of the post-Pong generation, people who grew up with video games as an ordinary adjunct of youth. ``When I was in elementary school, my dad brought home an Apple IIe and I started playing Joust and things,'' said Case, who just moved to Dallas from Kansas. ``When Nintendo came out, I was a total Nintendo addict.''

She didn't begin playing PC games until college, when a few friends at the University of Kansas, where she is a junior, introduced her to Doom. Those same friends opened her eyes to Quake.

With seven male friends, she started playing regularly and challenging other people to death matches and capture-the-flag. ``We never really knew how big it would get,'' Case said. ``We started to realize that we were pretty good players.''

As they gained notoriety within the gaming community, they were invited to visit the Dallas offices of Quake creators id Software (Romero's former company) and the cross-town offices of Ion Storm, Romero's new firm.

She played Romero once and was pummeled at the game he spent years designing. ``After he beat me, he made this big insulting web page and I didn't know him well enough then to know that he was joking,'' Case said.

Her pride dented, she publicly challenged Romero, ``called him out'' in street-fighting lingo, to a duel-to-the-death rematch.

She trounced him, and Spacetec IMC realized Case could be one of gamedom's first female celebrities.

``It's amazing to me that they pay me to play the game I love,'' Case said, laughing.

Case said her parents were concerned that Quake was consuming her time, eating into her studies as a political science major. They have since had a change of heart. ``After the Romero beating and after the sponsorship, they started to realize the possibilities,'' she said.

Case is an early favorite in an upcoming Quake death match tournament open only to women. It's an event that will likely bring out the best women players, both individuals and ``clans.''

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