So, yeah, long time no blogpost. It’s not that it is that much work, but, you know…

For those who are wondering what I’ve been up to, let me lay out my agenda here. My main goal for the summer is to work on my PhD. It is coming along nicely and it is as much a process of redrafting as it is writing new stuff. As I’m writing this I’m once again at Schiphol Airport on my way to the US of A to spend some days in Minneapolis. Very much look forward to it, making new friends, BBQ’ing, roadtripping etc. This month I will wrap up our paper (co-writer is the beloved Tanja Sihvonen) for the DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) 09 conference in London early September. The essay is titled “The new gatekeepers: The occupational ideology of game journalism” and reflects on the current status of game journalism. Much of the essay is based on our work as journalists (me in the Netherlands, Tanja in Finland). The line-up for the DiGRA conference looks quite packed but when I glanced over it I saw we were the only ones talking about game journalism, so I hope we can break some new ground here.

Talking about journalism, you might have heard my work for Dagblad De Pers has ended for the time being. I might pick up some special projects or small reviews, but for now I will not fill a page every Monday. De Pers is kinda broke and they could not afford me anymore. My editor will pick up where I left off. In the end it’s a good thing, I need to fully focus on my PhD and after 2.5 years (and 80+ articles later) it’s time to move on.

August will all about my PhD. In addition, I will work on two (academic) book chapters; one for a Dutch book on the game industry; my chapter will be, again, about game journalism (how to become one and how to navigate through the minefield that it is). The second book chapter will be for a book called “CounterPlay: Playing games against the rules”, edited by Jack Post and Jan Simons (to be published by Amsterdam University Press). A third project I will wrap up this summer is a short non-academic book chapter on war games. The book is titled “Oorlog. Voorbij maar niet verdwenen” (working title) and is kind of a neat project commemorating World War II. The line-up of authors is impressive and the foreword might be written by a very (VERY) famous Dutch VIP. Would be kinda cool to be in the same book as Them (yes, that’s a hint).

That is it for now, enjoy your summer!