Why are missing textures replaced by a black and purple checkerboard?

Question

In many different games, such as Minecraft and TF2, the default texture is a black and purple checkerboard. Even games that don't use that exact texture incorporate elements of it. Borderlands 2 uses a white and purple checkerboard, and Skyrim uses a solid purple texture. Why is the black and purple checkerboard so prevalent as a default texture?

Answer 1

This is most likely to represent a standard, noticeable and well-thought missing texture placement, so that the players across games simply think "Well yep, that's a missing texture, it's purple/black/checkerboards/white&black." As not to confuse them. tl;dr: It's consistent and players will recognize it.