It’s still a great time to be in Cambridge/Boston/Charlestown, and in the US of A in general. With Harvard close by and based at MIT, there seems to be an extremely excited or interesting lecture, seminar or working group every single day. Whether it’s on games, politics, military stuff, new media, social networking or the elections, there’s more than enough input for a million newspaper stories.

As it happened, Jesper Juul is based at GAMBIT and he was willing to talk to me about his new book on casual games (coming out summer 2009). His argument is compelling and as I do not play casual games that much, it was a very insightful discussion. I wrote a Q&A about it for Dagblad De Pers: “In casual games schijnt altijd de zon“. Also, I did a short review-ish article on Gamefly — “Huren is de toekomst” (see .pdf page 18). Gamefly is a game rental service I fell in love with the moment my feet touched US soil. Too bad I have to end my subscription soon and we (in the Netherlands) do not have something like this.

The elections are only 15 days away, so the NBC ticker tells me every, 5, seconds. Like I would forget. Watching US television all day is a treat for a media scholar. Now I hope to get a robocall, but since I’m not in a swingstate I think that wont happen.

I wrote a story about all this for Dagblad De Pers. Politieke advertenties in videogames: yes we can. I hope I can say this here, but I think it’s one of my better pieces.

After visiting the Leipzig Games Convention last August I wrote quite some articles for GMR (out now!).

- An interview with Kai Huang (CEO of RedOctane) – page 14-15.
- A preview of Call of Duty 5: World At War titled “Van Palau naar Berlijn” – page 22-23.
- A more analytical piece on the show itself: “Leipzig Games Convention 2008 – Gemütlich Gamespektakel” – page 26-27.

In addition I did another studio profile and a feature article on Achievements.

- Ontwikkelaarsprofiel: Gearbox Software – page 32-33.
- Achievement Unlocked: De Zin en Onzin van Microsofts Gamerscore – page 16-19.

I am especially proud of the Achievements piece, I wanted to write that piece for over a year. As for the interview with Gearbox, I spoke mainly with Randy Pitchford. The talk was very insightful and quite fun as well. Randy is a cool guy. Sadly I don’t have any game development skills, but Gearbox seems a good company to work for.

Because GMR 3.3 is off the shelves I uploaded some earlier stories:

- ‘Ontwikkelaarsprofiel: Infinity Ward’. In: GMR. 3.3, 2008, page 34-35.
- ‘America’s Army – De ultieme oorlogsmachine’. In: GMR. 3.3, 2008, page 20-21.
- ‘Larry Hryb (alias Major Nelson) – Het gezicht van Xbox Live’. In: GMR. 3.3, 2008, page 15.

(…)

Shoring up our economy
And putting it back on the right track.
So health care reform
And reducing taxes
And reining in spending
Has got to accompany tax reductions
And tax relief for Americans.
And trade.

(…)

(Sarah Palin To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)

From Slate.com

Having a background in fan studies I’m a bit hesitant to label myself as a fan. With one major exception. I am a huge fan of The Daily Show – With Jon Stewart. I literally watched every single episode the last five years, I think I missed only two or three. So you might imagine the sense of joy I felt when I heard I could attend a taping. Last tuesday (October 7) I was a VIP guest in the NYC based Daily Show studio to see John Oliver, Lewis Black and mr. Stewart himself. I sat two meters from The Desk which made my head spin. Before the show there was some time for Q&A and I enquired about the gaming skills of the host (answer: little gaming going on since he has kids now). I am still impressed by the level of professionalism of the crew and how incredibly funny all those involved in making the show are. Anyway, this will go down as one of the coolest things I ever did, that’s for sure :).

It’s not that big of a secret that I am quite interested in the US elections and that I am scared to death by Gov. Palin, her anti-intellectualism and ignorant folksyness. So rather than watching TV and doing nothing but complaining, I decided to help the Obama campaign a bit and drive to New Hampshire to canvass. It was quite an experience in the depths of McCain country and I had unexpected discussions about issues that are not (never will they be) on my mind.

Folia (University of Amsterdam magazine) did a short interview with me about why I’m here, why I am active in the campaign and why I support Obama. See page 7 (4 MB .pdf)

At Bashers.nl there is a new (and probably somewhat irregular) series I am participating in called “David en Niels in gesprek over…” (David & Niels talk about). It is an email conversation between Niels ‘t Hooft (Bashers.nl’s editor in chief) and me in which we give our take on something game related. For those who’re not familiar with Bashers.nl, it’s a groupblog on games by and for those who are seriously interested in games (mostly Dutch game journalists).

The email discussion format is meant to spark discussion between the two of us and since Bashers.nl is a blog we hope to get some feedback on our discussion as well of course. The first serie is on the first person shooter Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway (developed by Gearbox, recently published by Ubisoft). We talk about war and games in general, a bit about politics and about the books we read. I enjoy this format very much and it feels very much like the discussions I have here at MIT. The entire discussion is quite long and is cut up in four parts. I will update this post when the pieces come online the coming days.

- “David en Niels in gesprek over Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, deel 1” — Niels’ opening email
- “David en Niels in gesprek over Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, deel 2” — My reply
- “David en Niels in gesprek over Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, deel 3” — Niels’s reply
- “David en Niels in gesprek over Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, deel 4” — My final say.

For this week’s newspaper I did a story on the Wii game De Blob and the role the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU) played in this. I interviewed Jeroen van Mastrigt and asked about his view on the role of higher education for keeping the game industry innovative. The story is online here: “Nederlandse studenten maken succesgame“. I played De Blob and I think it’s a well done game, there was no room (nor the need) for an extensive review.

After four hectic days in Amsterdam I’m back in Cambridge. Just in time for the VP debates tomorrow and to get back to work at the wonderful place that is GAMBIT. In the meantime I did an article for De Pers on Grand Theft Childhood – The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games. The piece is based on a (very good and insightful) lecture of both authors here at MIT. Check out the piece here: “Veel opportunistisch onderzoek naar gewelddadige games – ‘Wetenschappelijke regels leken overboord gegooid’”. There’s also a .pdf version, of course, see page 19. The book is a worthwhile read for anybody who played games the last decade. Go. Buy. That. Book.

Also on that page is a short explanation of the DRM issues with Spore with the brilliant title “Spore laat sporen na” (thank you, thank you).

There’s more coming soon. I’m working on some great stuff and the input I get here at GAMBIT is helping my PhD in many ways. Only downside of being in the US are those pesky region locked consoles (damn you Wii & Xbox 360).

On a more somber note, a lot of my friends and colleagues had to endure the downfall of the free newssheet DAG. Although my newspaper is/was a (direct) competitor of DAG I feel very sad about the somewhat sudden end of DAG and wish all those involved the best of luck in the coming days and weeks.