It never ceases to amaze me what the power of television is. I got quite some emails, text messages, and phone calls about me being on TV (in some promo’s) today in a run up to the upcoming documentary on War & Games (tomorrow on Dutch public broadcasting). The documentary also led to an interview frenzy avec moi.

About two weeks ago I had an extensive face-2-face interview with freelance journalist Han Ceelen for the VPRO TV guide. It find it always very stimulating and fun to talk with professional interviewers, like Ceelen, and I am impressed how he condensed our talk, or rather me rapidly blabbing about games, the Dutch and US military, the representation of war et cetera, in quite a coherent piece.

The interview ‘Oorlogje Spelen’ is online at the special Tegenlicht website on the ‘Het Oorlogsspel’ docu. I also received a scan of the article (.jpg, 4mb).

Last Thursday I did a, also somewhat long, telephone interview with Tatiana Scheltema for both NRC and nrc.next. The article ‘Games verdringen beeld echte oorlog’ is online at their website and in both papers. I don’t have a scan but the piece on the website has the same picture as the newspaper does.

For the Tegenlicht website I ditched up an old piece of my own on America’s Army. It appeared in Folia (University of Amsterdam magazine) in 2006. My article ‘Zorg dat je erbij komt’ is at the Tegenlicht website. Alongside with a wide range of additional information on the topic and the bios of all speakers.

Here’s more coverage: “Wargaming: militairen trainen in virtueel Uruzgan” by Marloes de Koning (for the GPD consortium) and “Tegenlicht behandelt America’s Army als rekruteringsmethode” at Nu.nl and Gamer.nl.

If you want to know more about America’s Army, please go to the Academic Writings section. I did some writing on games and propaganda, mixing fan culture with military culture, a MA thesis, and a journal article in Dutch (“Military Game(r)s: spel of simulatie“ for the Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis).

While the whole world (or at least large parts of it) seams to be focused on a ‘movie’ by some dude who dies his hair, I was enjoying my exclusive story on Grand Theft Auto 4 in Dagblad De Pers. The story itself took some time to produce. I had the idea months ago, but developer Rockstar is not exactly open to journalists. On the contrary, they run quite a rigid marketing campaign. But my persistence paid off and last week I traveled to München to see GTA4 in action for 3 hours. And what a show it was. Bring in the superlatives. The game is pretty freakin’ solid. I could write an essay of over 3000 words (or a journalist piece for that matter) but it’s better for everyone to just wait until April 29. Buy the game. Play it. And be happy with the current state of gaming. That is at least my plan. He (or she) who dares to call/email/annoy me around April 29, prepare to be ignored. It happens to be that in that week there is no teaching, there’s Queens day and a host of other reasons not to work. Bring it on.

My story “Langverwachte Monsterhit” (.pdf) is spread over three pages. Check it out!

Oh and I reviewed Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and Tigerz: Avonturen in het Circus. Vegas 2, pretty neat title as well. I enjoyed playing the co-op parts with friends.

I got tons of more info on GTA4 but I’m off, I’m in the Battlefield: Bad Company closed beta and after a week of (too much) work it’s time to enjoy blasting through walls and leveling garden sheds.

Next Monday (March 31) I’ll get my five minutes of fame by appearing on a VPRO Tegenlicht documentary on War & Games. I had several interview sessions and did an on camera appearance. I already saw the rough edit. In the documentary I talk about America’s Army mostly. There are other talking heads as well of course, such as James Der Derian, Washington Post contributor William M. Arkin and Hans Binnendijk (no he’s not Dutch). I am extremely proud, humbled and honored to appear amongst such high profile experts.

For all Dutchies out there, the show will be on Nederland 2 at 21:00, there will be a re-run AND most probably the episode will be online at the Tegenlicht website, note: the voice-over is Dutch but all interviewees speak English (I do as well, please do not mind the horrible Dutch accent…). I will post an update next Monday after the show.

About the show:

Sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog maakt de wapenindustrie een belangrijk deel uit van de economie van de Verenigde Staten. Met een jaarlijkse uitgave van meer dan 600 miljard dollar (het Bruto Nationaal Product van Nederland) claimt de regering van George W. Bush bijna de helft van het wereldbudget aan militaire uitgaven. Het bestaan van een militair-industrieel complex met invloedrijke belangengroepen wordt niet meer betwist. Daar is nu een nieuw conglomeraat bij gekomen. De vergaande techniek van digitale verbeelding en informatie technologie hebben het leger middelen in handen gegeven hun ‘war games’ steeds realistischer te beoefenen. Simulatie trainingen voor piloten zijn bekend, maar nu zijn er ook de trainingen voor het gehele peloton.

Wew, I made it to Easter. Finally some time off. The last weeks have been quite a ride. Yesterday I had a great time with three colleagues from Tokyo. And for today’s newspaper story I visited Birmingham to wrap my head around the future of MMORPGs. Today’s story is somewhat short & trivial but I had an interesting interview with some Jumpgate Evolution developers.

The story on Codemasters Connect is to be found here (or .pdf see page 23). In addition there’s a short Magic & Illusion (Nintendo DS) review as well.

Hold tight for a newspaper story this Friday! I secured the exclusive of the year for Dagblad De Pers. Yes, it’s that game and I saw it in action and had an extensive interview session.

You got games which are ‘meh‘, they’re solid but they don’t stand out or anything. Although I like Guitar Hero 2 very very much, after playing Rock Band Guitar Hero has become ‘meh’. Rock Band, unfortunately, isn’t out in the EU. I played it in Boston and at EA HQ in Amsterdam. And wow, this is the one to rule them all. If you’re looking for just a short game, a quick music fix or something, skip Rock Band. If you have friends who are into music and all, Rock Band is a must buy. I wanted to bring a kit back to the Netherlands, but I didn’t. Huge mistake. The story in Dagblad de Pers, Friday March 14, is about why Rock Band isn’t out yet, what it is and when it will be out. Check it out: “Headbangen op de Playstation“, or (.pdf page 21). What’s interesting from more of an academic perspective is how ‘they’ (EA/MTV/Harmonix) are incorporating fan practices (buying hardware, T-shirts and such), dumbing them down or making them more accessible in a a way, and making a shitload of money on legal music sales. When they talk about Rock Band as a music platform, that’s when its getting really interesting.

Something completely different, for the daily newspaper DAG of last Friday, I did an interview on the recent price drop of the Xbox 360. Explaining how money is made on games rather than hardware and the different development/hardware strategies of Sony and Microsoft.

Some days ago I went to Stockholm to visit DICE, the development studio behind the Battlefield-series and Mirror’s Edge. I fiddled a bit with Battlefield: Bad Company. Caught a glimpse of Mirror’s Edge, the first person action adventure slated for September 08. And did tons of interviews. Apart from the interesting insights I gained over there for my PhD, the first tangible output is a newspaper article today on the free (yes gratis, free as in free beer) World War Two-themed First Person Shooter PC-game Battlefield: Heroes. Check out the hilarious trailer. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

The article in Dagblad De Pers (.pdf see page 17, online article here) discusses the rationale behind the project – a mixture of web 2.0 (i.e. online social networks) and casual games. The game will be launched as sort of a diving board. Community feedback will decide where the project, which will be supported in every way possible after launch, will go. Fascinating project!

For your gaming pleasure I did two small reviews. One on the quirky (and instant classic) Patapon, the other on the standard but enjoyable Frontlines: Fuel of War (love the backstory on this one btw).

Our department (Media & Culture) at the uni of Amsterdam is looking for another ‘docent/promovendus’ (phd/lecturer), a.k.a. “my job”. You want it? Well go write a letter, or better, send an email! The PhD topic is new media & journalism and that’s why I want you to apply! I look forward to another groovy colleague who can teach me a thing or two about participatory journalism. I am interested in the topic but lack the time to dig into it.

Woopppss, before I forget. Another achievement to add to my gamerscore ;). Last Friday I made it to the frontpage of Dagblad de Pers with a story on the US intelligence community doing explorative research on virtual worlds. Title: “De CIA jaagt nu op gamers“. The story is sort of a follow-up on this Wired blog: “U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft“. Check out the Wired post for more sources and the original unclassified report.

For the story, on which I worked with the De Pers editor Arjan Terpstra, I had a delightful phone conversation with Berkman Center’s Senior Fellow John Clippinger. For those interested in this topic, I would recommend his book A Crowd of One. Clippinger’s comment on the story: this is only a tip of the iceberg. Yikes… didn’t expect such an answer. I think he’s right. With too much time, money and manpower the intelligence community was bound to enter World of Warcraft.

As front page stories tend to do, this one had a little fallout. Gamer.nl linked to the story. And I did a short radio interview that Friday for my favorite radio station, BNR Nieuwsradio (at around 12:30). All in all, lots of fun!