Last weeks of September I had a short break and drove through Texas, good times! In the meantime, an interview was published on game journalism: “Gamejournalistiek: het vuile woord”. Do read the comments, they are as interesting as the piece itself. My take is, and has been:

“Ik denk dat een journalistieke werkwijze (of attitude) belangrijker is dan hoe je jezelf uiteindelijk beschouwt. Uiteindelijk vind ik dat gamejournalisten een bepaalde verantwoordelijkheid hebben (naar hun publiek, niet naar uitgevers of opdrachtgevers) en die ook moeten nemen.”

This Friday (October 8) I will do a lecture at the University of Utrecht (1-3pm) on the subject (game journalism). It will be in Dutch and if you’re interested to attend, drop me an email and I’ll tell you when and where (yes, you’re also welcome if you’re not a UU student!).

A longer interview was published in the magazine Revu on the most controversial games published (in the Netherlands) over the last decade. Think of Carmageddon, Postal, and Bully. The interview is titled “geweldgames gaan niet ver genoeg” and has my comment on why these games have been deemed controversial (or not). There are scans of the interview here (page 1 and page 2).

Last but not least, an announcement. The KNAW (Royal Dutch Academy of the Sciences) will host a symposium and roundtable discussion on serious games with Peter Werkhoven (TNO), David Shaffer, Jeroen van Mastrigt (HKU), Pieter Winsemius (WRR), Valerie Frissen (EUR/TNO), Carla Hoekendijk, and me on October 21. If you want to attend (it’s free and open to the public), there is more information here, send a RSVP before October 15.

During the weekend a story ran on e-sports for the NRC newspaper. I was interviewed and contributed the story’s title “Chess in 3D” (meaning to say, that playing fast paced first person shooters in an e-sports setting is much like playing chess on three boards at the same time in terms of complexity). The story can be read on Bashers.nl.

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Yesterday I did a live interview for Radio 1′s NCRV afternoon show Lunch. I have been a guest before last March to talk about Second Life. This time we had a vivid conversation about the recent hoaxes on Twitter (particularly the “free money” incident which turned out to be a mere technological glitch, the rumor that Queen Beatrix would step down, and the fake Carglass Twitter account). Given that it is “cucumber time” (i.e. slow news in the summertime), these hoaxes get extra attention on TV & on the radio. Some go as far as to ask if this would make Twitter a useless tool. Although I did not mention it on air, I’ve been confirmed in my conviction that Twitter can be very useful after Clay Shirky’s wonderful “Here comes everybody”, so for those interested in the topic, I would recommend reading that.

Or, you can listen to the interview, download it here (.mp3, 8 minutes, 7.4Mb).

Wednesday marked an important ruling by a Dutch judge who decided that selling ‘mod-chips‘ and flash cards, especially those for the Nintendo DS (so called R4 cards) and the Wii, is now illegal (and the web shops who sold the mod-chips have to pay the court costs). [N]Gamer’s Nik Wouters has more on the story and interviewed Nintendo.

For Wednesday’s evening news (NOS Achtuurjournaal) I was interviewed as part of a segment on the ruling. The entire clip is below.

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*update* (July 10) Democracy in action! Dutch member of parliament Tofik Dibi (of Groen Links) asked the minister of justice a series of (very spot on) questions. Our combined efforts (of gamers, academics and journalists) to argue for better media literacy among parents (and against censorship), seem to have made a difference! Read the questions here. */update*

Our Dutch minister of justice Hirsch Ballin send a letter to the “Tweede Kamer” (the House of Representatives) regarding the banning of violent video games. His letter is emblematic of a (political) culture in which key politicians are utterly media illiterate and build their arguments on selectively quoting solid research. On top of that, a ban on violent film would be less desirable because that would lead to civil unrest (as opposed to games?). Well, I/we obviously disagree.

At Bashers, there’s more information. I wrote an op-ed to ask gamers to have their voices heard. “Neem contact op met Hirsch Ballin en bewijs dat een verbod op gewelddadige games weerstand oproept“.

At game industry magazine Control there is a crucial piece of information (of prof. Jansz) slamming the minister’s letter.

And at Petities.nl there’s a petition to sign.

Has been a while, so here’s a round-up of what I did last month (of May). For starters, I have been busy working on my PhD (and will continue to do so for the coming months). Next to that there were some cool projects I participated in. For example, May 3 I did the opening talk for Upload Cinema. The 18th edition focused on games (titled “All play and no work”) and I was a guest-curator to select the most hilarious and fascinating web clips (to be shown in Theater De Uitkijk). We had a record of 270+ submissions and 32 clips made it to the final selection. Here’s the entire list which represent (a selection of) the best web clips on games and game culture.

This month I also participated in the Bashers.nl podcast. We talked about the iPad (yes, I haz one), Little Big Planet and User Created Content, and about the book “Nintendo Magic”.

And, to top it all off, I did two talks this week:
- 2010 (May 20). “Journalistiek & Social Media”. Talk at Kringcongres 2010 at Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen (HAN), Nijmegen.
- 2010 (May 21). “Blurring Boundaries: War & Games”. Talk at ‘(new) Media and the United States’ event organized by the Netherlands American Studies Association (NASA), Utrecht.

For the coming months I will be less busy with talks and the like. There are some interviews I did last week which will be published the coming weeks, but other than that, expect more sporadic updates on this site as I am slowly getting into crunch mode with my PhD.

Critical Gamer did an exstensive interview about idealism in the game industry, and game journalism in particular. In the interview I talk about the ‘problem’ of games journalism, the ‘games journalism lifestyle’ and what games journalism should be. The interview was done by Utrecht University student Snezana Nedeski and can be found here.

For Bashers I wrote a book review on “The race for a new game machine: creating the chips inside the Xbox 360 & the Playstation 3″. Concluding:

Heb je het geduld om door de halfbakken managementtips en de verhalen over slapeloze nachten van Shippy en Phipps heen te lezen, dan biedt The race for a new game machine de broodnodige verdieping om eerdere en toekomstige hardwareontwikkelingen binnen de gamesindustrie net weer iets beter te kunnen duiden. En met Natal en Move voor de deur is dat alles behalve een overbodige luxe.

Over at Mindnote there’s a short interview on games and learning: “Dossier: Over Spelend Leren – David Nieborg“. Do check out the dossier on games and learning featuring interviews with other experts on games and/or learning.

Yes that is games with a Z :).

The first interview I did was on sex in games, an article authored by Anna Sonnemans called “De seksuele revolutie van games” in which I argue that we should make more love (in games) and a little less war (because there’s plenty of the latter already). The article is published in the paper version, so no online text to link to.

The second interview is on games & narrative by Floor Coert: “Er was eens… een game – over verhalen in games“. In this article I argue that although there are some interesting examples regarding interactive narratives (e.g. Grand Theft Auto and Heavy Rain), we have a long way to go.

Last week (March 29) I did another interview for Radio 1 (NOS this time) on the current state of Dutch political campaigning. For the report the Dutch Liberal Party’s (VVD) Internet advisors were interviewed and I added some context. My main beef with the average Dutch political party’s digital strategy is that it is non-existent, and that there are two missed opportunities (the European and recent local elections) to test some new tools and gain online support.

There’s an article accompanying the report and and you can listen to the report on the NOS website (it’s 4:20).