The early 1990s were tumultuous times for Bunten. Not only was the game industry was changing in ways that Bunten disagreed with, but she an internal struggle was also coming to a head. Bunten had lived through three failed marriages, knowing that she was not entirely comfortable in her own skin.
In 1992, Bunten underwent gender reassignment surgery. Bunten called this period of her like the "pronoun change." Naturally, this decision caused a great number of Bunten's friends and family to shun her, but she was fortunate enough to maintain relationships with her children. A few years after the surgery, Bunten expressed relief with being comfortable with herself, but also acknowledged partial dissatisfaction with the fallout from the procedure. In a moving message from Bunten on her personal page, she notes "I just wish I would have tried more options before I jumped off the precipice."
"There's any number of ways to express your gender and sexuality and the only one I tried was the big one." -- Dani Bunten
Bunten returned to games in 1997 with the creation of Warsport, a Modem Wars remake. She was also mulling over ideas for an update to M.U.L.E. when she was diagnosed with lung cancer as a result of a lifetime of smoking. She died on July 3, 1998.
Two months before her death, though, Bunten was celebrated with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association. And in 2007, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences inducted her into the half of fame, sharing the honor with past recipients like Shigeru Miyamoto and Sid Meier.
Hawkins remembers Dani as "a great soul with a lot of depth and caring for the world. He had only the best intentions for gaming to make the world a better place." (Hawkins noted that his relationship with Bunten was primarily when she was Dan.)
But Hawkins also points out something else about Bunten's legacy beyond multplayer gaming, referring to Seven Cities of Gold: "Playing that game got me motivated to read a 700 page book on the conquest of the Incas. This is still an important idea -- to use casual play to engage and inspire and introduce, and then hopefully it sparks the imagination and customers go deeper into the subject in other ways."
As somebody that was also inspired to read, learn, and explore by early computer games, it's impossible to understate the effect a game can have on an impressionable mind. I am fortunate to have grown up during the so-called golden age of computer games, and to have experienced Bunten's forward-looking masterpieces when they were new, not museum pieces. She wanted us to use games to get to know each other better, rather to seal ourselves off. I see that DNA now in everything from World of Warcraft to Wikipedia. And I only hope that over time, more and more game designers quietly discover the genius of Dani Bunten.