Rest In Play - 2020 - 2029

Leonardo Riggio was born on February 28, 1941 and passed away on August 27, 2024. He was the founder of what we know as Barnes & Noble as well as GameStop. Leonardo attended New York University, a...nd while he was a student, he opened the Student Book Exchange in 1965. He then acquired the Barnes & Noble bookstore in NYC in 1971, adopted the name, and expanded on his network of bookstores by acquiring hundreds of them throughout his career. He is responsible for the B&N Superstore concept—adding cafes and comfy reading nooks to the stores. When Amazon became popular, Leonardo launched BarnesAndNoble.com to compete, and ended up opening a successful video game retail operation, which grew to become GameStop. Outside of his executive career, he also bred and raced horses for Thoroughbred racing. He also was the benefactor of many organizations and charities, including his alma mater and Dia:Beacon art museum in Beacon, New York. He also had his own private collection of art specializing in Minimalist art. He established Project Home Again to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.Show more

Simon Holdsworth was born on June 25, 1949 and passed away on November 14, 2020. He was the managing director at Thos Holdsworth & Sons Ltd.

Marcus King, ICv2 columnist, GAMA officer, and longtime game and comic retailer passed away on March 22, 2022. He passed away after undergoing heart surgery, during which he also had COVID and pneumon...ia. King was a columnist for ICv2 from 2010 to 2017, sharing the lessons he’d learned in his 30+ years as a retailer. King began his retailing career in 1986, when he opened his first store in Anchorage, Alaska. He opened Titan Games in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1994, and a second store in Kalamazoo in 2009. Although he he was best known as a retailer of tabletop games, he also handled (and wrote about) comics, collectible video games, and other products of interest to his customers. In 2011, King sold his Michigan stores and moved to Kentucky, where he continued to retail, including a stint managing a retail store for online retailer Troll and Toad, and most recently at Main Street Games & Comics in London, Kentucky. King was also active in GAMA for many years, including as board member and Vice President beginning in 2005, as a board member in the Retailer Division, and as a speaker at GAMA events.Show more

Mohammad Fahmi, creator of Coffee Talk, passed away in March 2022. In addition to writing Coffee Talk, Mohammad worked on a number of other titles including What Comes After, Afterlove EP, and Cod...e Atma as a game designer, writer, and director. He also spent time at Gameloft as a programmer and designer, lending his talents to games such as Asphalt 6: Adrenaline and The Oregon Trail: American Settler.Show more

Ian Hetherington was born on June 28, 1952 and passed away on December 14, 2021. Ian was the co-founder of Psygnosis, a video game developer. He founded it along with Jonathan Ellis after the coll...apse of Imagine Software, where he was the Financial Director. Together they published games including Shadow of the Beast, Wipeout, and Lemmings. Psygnosis was later acquired by Sony in 1993. While it's not defunct, many sequels to many of Psygnosis's games were released. Ian was also Chariman of Evolution Studios and Realtime Worlds, and enjoyed racing Ferraris in club events in his free time.Show more

Sarah Ross, formerly Zynga's vice president of global communications passed away in November 2021. Sarah had been working for Zynga for almost three years. Prior to Zynga, she was at Jam City, wher...e she held the same vice president of global communications position. Previously, she had worked marketing roles at Backflip Studios, Yahoo, TechCrunch, and Flipagram. At Zynga, Sarah was the driving force behind Zynga's social impact campaign Play Apart Together, which encouraged people to observe social distancing guidelines during the pandemic and stay in touch by playing games with their friends. Other campaigns Ross worked on include the Breast Cancer Awareness Month initiative #WordsWithHope.Show more

Jerry Houle, one of the pioneers of modern brand licensing and merchandising business and one of eight cofounders of Licensing International, passed away on October 27, 2021. Jerry started his care...er at Fisher Price and Milton Bradley before joining Jim Henson’s Muppets in March 1977 as its first marketing person and 25th employee. Jerry founded 7 divisions for the company, including worldwide licensing. In 1984, he ounded his own agency, Bliss House, Inc., whose clients included Curious George, Chaplin, Monty Python, Princess Diana, General Motors, Survivor, Babar, among many others. He also created and taught an MBA-level course on licensing at Babson College, and spoke at licensing events around the world. He leaves behind his wife, Peggy, sons, Jerome, William, and James, as well as six grandchildren. He will be deeply and dearly missed by all those that knew and loved him.Show more

Peter was born on November 1, 1937 and passed away on March 15, 2021. Peter earned his degree from Fordham University, and was a lifelong proud alumni. After graduating, he enlisted in the army, a...nd was transferred to the 77th Infantry Reserves in New York. During his time in the Reserves, he started a job as a buyer at B.Altman & Co,, which is coincidentally where he met his first wife, Priscilla Pfurr. Peter went on to work as a buyer for Child World in Massachusetts, where he met his second wife, Linda Hejduk. Then Peter moved to New York City and started a job with a stuffed toy manufacturer, Commonwealth Toy. Soon after, he and Linda started their own stuffed toy manufacturing company, Westcliff Limited. After his son, Peter, joined them, they enjoyed more than a dozen years in business traveling to South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, China, and trade shows across the US. After retiring, Peter and Linda moved to Mantoloking, NJ, and spent their golden years traveling the world.Show more

Bill Gamson was born on January 27, 1934 and passed away on March 23, 2021. He was a professor of Sociology at Boston College, wrote numerous books and articles on political discourse, and wrote and c...reated the National Baseball Seminar, the first fantasy baseball league in Boston in the 1960s. After he came up with the game at Boston College, he moved to the University of Michigan, where he recruited more people to play the game, including Robert Sklar, who mentioned it to Daniel Okrent, who went on to invent the Rotisserie League Baseball. It's considered the closest ancestor to today's billion-dollar fantasy sports industry.Show more

Terry Stephens passed away in early April 2021. He was a director of CTS Upper Thames Wholesalers and retail buying group Youngsters. Later in his career, he switched to the sales side working for Gib...ons Games. Friends and colleagues remember him as a charming gentleman, a smart dresser, and an Arsenal football fan.Show more