Talk:Ed Healy

Sources

@Cunard, this one was recently PRODded and sources were added with the PROD removed, but in case someone takes it to AFD, do you see anything that can help improve this article? BOZ (talk) 05:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi BOZ (talk · contribs). Here are some sources about the subject:

1. Sailor, Craig (2016-09-17). "Abjuring screens, Gamerati fight on with dice, cards and boards". The News Tribune. Archived from the original on 2024-02-16. Retrieved 2024-02-16.

   The article notes: "The illuminati behind Gamerati is Ed Healy, a DuPont game marketer and promoter. Gamerati is the name of his for-profit business. ... Healy, 42, started his first gaming company while in college. He put out an a role-playing "X-files"-like game and a pre-zombie craze game, All Flesh Must Be Eaten. After college, Healy joined the financial services company Deloitte but joined the army after the 9/11 attacks. ... Four years later, he had a family and knew it was time to get out. While still deployed in Iraq, Healy began assisting Wolfgang Baur, the founder of Kirkland-based Kobold Press, with advertising. Baur signed Healy on as a game promoter in 2008. ... With his various marketing efforts Healy estimates he's had a hand in 8 percent of all the traditional gaming money raised on Kickstarter, or about $50 million."

2. Appelcline, Shannon (2014). Adamus, Adam (ed.). Designers & Dragons: The '00s. Silver Spring, Maryland: Evil Hat Productions. pp. 2, 135. ISBN 978-1-61317-087-8. Retrieved 2024-02-16 – via Internet Archive.

   The book notes on page 2: "The indie community also proved a bountiful new source of designers, thanks to its careful nurturing of independent design. Ron Edwards, Ed Healy, and Clinton R. Nixon were among the leaders who helped to herald in a whole new generation of designers, which included Vincent Baker, Luke Crane, Rob Donoghue, Fred Hicks, Ralph Mazza, Jason Morningstar, Jared Sorensen, Brennan Taylor, and Chad Underkoffler."

   The book notes on "That story starts with Ed Healy, a founding member of Eden Studios. He was forced to divest himself of his Eden ownership in 1997 when he joined Deloitte & Touche as a staff accountant. However, he wasn't done with the hobby, so he instead began work on something that was allowed by Deloitte & Touche: game design. While Healy was working on a Risk-like dice mechanic, he stumbled across Sorcerer. Its own dice system was almost identical to what Healy had been working on, so he put aside his design and struck up a friendship with Edwards. This in turn led him to the Gaming Outpost, an energetic and experimental online community of designers that included Mike Mearls, Gareth Hanrahan, Clinton Nixon, John Wick, and others."

3. White, William J. (2020). Tabletop RPG Design in Theory and Practice at the Forge, 2001–2012. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 21, 34–35. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-52819-5_2. ISBN 978-3-030-52818-8. Retrieved 2024-02-16 – via Google Books.

   The book notes on page 21: "According to Ed Healy, who would later participate in the creation of the Forge, the Gaming Outpost forums ‘had the vibe of a private club, not in an exclusionary way but just like dudes hanging out talking,’ a sort of ‘town square’ where many, like him, were also interested in talking about game design (Ed Healy, phone interview).

   The book notes on page 34: "The first version of the Forge was the product of the encounter between Ron Edwards as an independent game designer and Ed Healy as a businessminded believer in independent RPGs. Ron and Ed had corresponded via phone and e-mail after Ed had picked up a copy of Ron’s game 'Sorcerer ..."

   The book notes on page 35: "Ron told Ed about the issues he was having in his negotiations with a potential publisher for Sorcerer ... Ron shared his disappointment with Ed, but seemed resigned to continuing to publish Sorcerer as he had been doing. But Ed was convinced that Ron could do more. ... The website, which Healy named ‘Hephaestus’ Forge’ in honor of the Greek god of crafting, went live in December 1999, calling itself the ‘Internet Home of Indie Role-Playing Games.’4 Ron created most of the content, having devoted a considerable amount of time to tracking down independent games, while Ed designed the pages and arranged for site hosting, with the idea that discussions about the games would take place on the forums at the Gaming Outpost (GO). Hephaestus’ Forge featured links to indie RPGs and indie gaming magazines as well as resources for game designers like a list of prospective game artists."

4. Snow, Cason (2008-04-18). "Dragons in the stacks: an introduction to role-playing games and their value to libraries". Collection Building. Vol. 27, no. 2. Emerald Group Publishing. p. 65. doi:10.1108/01604950810870218. ISSN 0160-4953.

   The article notes: "In 2000 Ron Edwards published a PDF of his independently produced RPG, Sorcerer. This game was wholly created and published by him and roughly marks the beginning of the “indie” game movement. This game was developed from discussion on a web site, “Hephaestus’ Forge” created by Edwards and Ed Healy in the 1990s. Hephastus’ Forge began to promote independent ownership and publication of games, as opposed to corporate ownership. The web site went inactive for years and was renamed and relaunched by Edwards and Clinton R. Nixon as simply “The Forge” (Flames Rising, 2004). This site continues to be very active in the promotion of independent games design and publication."

5. Cooper, Kathleen (2016-10-20). "Appeal of board games takes off among South Sound retailers, local gamers". The News Tribune. Archived from the original on 2024-02-16. Retrieved 2024-02-16.

   The article notes: "aid Ed Healy, owner of DuPont-based game promotion company Gamerati. ... Reliable estimates for the size of the hobby game industry are hard to come by. In 2011, as Healy was doing a tour of U.S. game stores, he estimated it generated $1.5 billion in sales annually. ... Even though chain stores such as Target and Amazon sell most games at a discount, local stores offer two things they don't, Healy said: community and immediacy."

6. Kushner, Joe G (2008-08-15). "Review of PC Pearls". RPGnet. Archived from the original on 2024-02-16. Retrieved 2024-02-16.

   The review lists Ed Healy as a coauthor.

7. Appelcline, Shannon (2014). Adamus, Adam (ed.). Designers & Dragons: The '90s. Silver Spring, Maryland: Evil Hat Productions. p. 331. ISBN 978-1-61317-084-7. Retrieved 2024-02-16 – via Internet Archive.

   The book notes: "That wasn’t the end for Conspiracy X. On July 4, 1997, George Vasilakos and Alex Jurkat — together with investor Ed Healy — announced that they had formed a new gaming company, Eden Studios. They were also acquiring the Conspiracy X rights from their former partners in New Millennium Entertainment and would be continuing with the line. The name “Eden Studios” had meaning to the principals. Healy suggested “Eden” because the group was trying to create their paradise job. Unfortunately, he never got to see it, as he was forced to give up his Eden ownership when he joined Deloitte & Touche later in the year, well before Eden became more than a parttime venture."

8. Baichtal, John (2008-07-03). "GeekDads' Favorite Podcasts". Wired. Archived from the original on 2024-02-16. Retrieved 2024-02-16.

   The article notes: "I want to start off with geek dad and friend-of-the-blog Ed Healy’s new RPG podcast Atomic Array: Games that will blow your mind. The inaugural episode is scheduled for July 4th, featuring Colonial Gothic by Rogue Games."

9. Torner, Evan (2018). "RPG Theorizing by Designers and Players". In Zagal, José P.; Sebastian, Deterding (eds.). Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315637532-10. ISBN 978-1-315-63753-2. Retrieved 2024-02-16 – via Google Books.

   The book notes: "The Forge. An influential online forum for “indie” TRPG theory discussion, spurring important indie games and fan-theoretical models like the “Big Model." The web forum The Forge (indie-rpgs.com/forge) was created by two exiles from the RPG website Gaming Outpost: Ron Edwards ... and publicist Ed Healy. Their website Hephaestus's Forge (1999–2001) initially functioned like a webring, aggregating links to various independently published TRPGs."

10. Torres-Roman, Steven A.; Snow, Cason E. Dragons in the Stacks: A Teen Librarian's Guide to Tabletop Role-Playing. Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 978-1-61069-261-8. Retrieved 2024-02-16 – via Google Books.

    The book notes: "Sorcerer evolved from discussions on a website, Hephaestus' Forge, created by Edwards and Ed Healy in the 1990s. Hephaestus' Forge began to promote independent ownership and publication of games, as opposed to corporate ownership. The website went inactive for years and was renamed and relaunched by Edwards and Clinton R. Nixon as simply The Forge (Rhoer 2007). (The Forge shut down in 2012; the Story Games website [1] is now one of the leading forums for discussing indie RPGs.)"

11. Torner, Evan (2021). "Actual Play Reports: Forge Theory and the Forums". In Jones, Shelly (ed.). Watch Us Roll: Essays on Actual Play and Performance in Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-4766-7762-0. Retrieved 2024-02-16 – via Google Books.

    The book notes: "The Forge was an Internet forum that developed a lasting online community, an independent publishing movement, and a body of RPG theory with which present-day developers and players still wrestle. Those who helped found the forum in 2001 and run it until its closure in 2012 included Ed Healy (Gamerati podcast), Ron Edwards (Sorcerer), Vincent Baker (Apocalypse World), and Clinton R. Nixon (The Shadow of Yesterday). The forum not only empowered its discussants with the tools and support to publish their own RPGs, regardless of commercial viability or subject matter, but also preserved its own unique-if-frustrating Socratic form of dialogue about RPGs."

Cunard (talk) 10:34, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh nice, thanks @Cunard, I will get to work on this one soon. :) BOZ (talk) 13:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

How does the article look now @Torchiest? :) BOZ (talk) 16:52, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Wow! Impressive work, both of you. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 17:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)