It’s official and it’s incredibly good news. Last year I put in a grant proposal at NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) as part of the “Topsectoren” policy framework. There were 96 applications, 16 projects were awarded funding (total 7.7M), many of which are game related. See the press release here.

What does this mean?
Starting this Summer, I will have a fulltime post-doc research position at the University of Amsterdam for (at least) 3 years.

What is the project about?
The project is tentatively titled: “App Economics: The organization and monetization of networked gaming”. The ambition of the project is to combine the inquiring perspectives of the entrepreneur with that of the academic asking: What are the determining factors of hit games on mobile platforms? So it’s an inquiry into mobile game platforms and creative clusters in the Netherlands, the US and Asia.

Any key words?
Sure: Mobile game platforms, apps, hits, political economy, game studies, business innovation

Who is part of the project?
An important element of the Topsectoren framework in building a interdisciplinary team of academics and industry professionals. The project is supported by the University of Amsterdam via my esteemed colleagues prof. dr. Van Dijck and prof. dr. De Kloet. My academic partners are MIT and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I will visit both institutions to do fieldwork in Boston and Hong Kong. My industry partners are PWC, Paladin Studios, Dutch Game Garden and Pool Worldwide.

Now what?
This Summer I will wrap up some old projects and visit Hong Kong and Seoul. My goal is to keep working as a game journalist and do a select number of talks and consultancy projects. I look forward to this next step and be a fulltime academic again.

Keep you posted?
Follow this blog or keep an eye out for the development of: http://www.appeconomics.org/

The other day I watched the documentary De Uitverkoren (watch it here) about the Dutch Marine Corps and its recruiting practices. My column is a bit tongue-in-cheek and discusses how the gamer generation consists of a bunch of, well, pussies.

In de documentaire De Uitverkorenen van Geertjan Lassche ontstaat een ontluisterend beeld van de gamer-generatie.

Download article (.pdf)

Yesterday evening I was invited back again for a live interview on Radio 1′s renowned Het Oog op Morgen. We talked about serious games, the Dutch game industry and the Festival of Games.

Download recording (.mp3 – 10Mb)

There is this great podcast by my colleagues dr. Linda Duits, dr. Vincent Crone & dr. Chris Aalberts who have a podcast on media related issues and research. This week we talked about whether or not games are mainstream. And of course about game research, history and much more! There is more information here or you can download the podcast from iTunes here.

There is this wonderful book series by the EDGE foundation. Every year they ask “thinkers” (academics, journalists, artists etc) to all answer the same question. This year that question was: “What is your favorite deep, elegant or beautiful theory?”. (Original book title: This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful and Elegant Theories on How the World Works). Other 155 (!) authors include Evegeny Morozov, Clay Shirky, Richard Dawkins and many others. Quite honored to be part of such a brilliant group of people.

My chapter is on winning. Or to be more precise about network effects and the winner-takes-all-logic. As part of the book promotion I was a guest on VPRO’s Boeken together with Hans IJzerman and Stine Jensen, who also contributed to the Dutch version of the book. You can buy it here, the ebook is only 10€! Take a look at the show below or click here.

It has been a while since I played a Triple-A game from start to finish so I was in for a treat when I had the chance to dig into Bioshock Infinite for a full blown newspaper review. I remember very well the first Bioshock (2007) and the many discussions with my friends in Amsterdam & Boston. Infinite is very well done, on all levels, BUT the constant shooting at generic enemies became somewhat distracting. That said, I am very much looking forward to the scholarly work that will be done picking this game apart!

Ambitieus, complex en gelaagd – op het schieten na

Download review (.pdf)

If you’re a hardcore gamer, or better yet, if you are familiar with the Dutch game scene, or if you simply love games, then you must have heard the story of Vlambeer‘s Ridiculous Fishing. As the subtitle of the game suggest, it truly is a story of redemption. The game was copied first and then Vlambeer’s version launched on March 14 on iOS became an overnight success. I wrote a feature article about the two year adventure for both NRC Handelsblad and nrc.next. Nrc.next even headlined the story on their frontpage:

Als je geniale visgame gejat wordt, vecht je natuurlijk terug.

Download article (.pdf)

It feels like a weird argument to make: Mobile games are too cheap. Yet, I hear gamers complaining when mobile games cost more than 1$ (or 79 cents). To me that’s somewhat weird being used to buy games for 60 euro’s. In the end there’s always a trade-off, particularly with free-2-play titles that offer IAP (in app purchases). I would argue that there’s no way back from free.

Wie wil er straks nog überhaupt betalen voor games?

Download article (.pdf)

My former MIT Game Lab colleague Jesper Juul wrote a great book on failing in games: “The Art Of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games“. It’s one of those books that has a string of insightful ideas and concepts about something gamers are so intimately familiar with (yes Im talking about failing in games). My column is a mini-review of the book. Spoiler: I liked the book!

Dit paradoxale gegeven, het feit dat mensen niet willen falen, maar tegelijkertijd het gevoel van snoeihard mislukken constant opzoeken in games, is juist een van de elementen die spelen zo leuk maken.

Download article (.pdf)

The nrc.next shifted gears and did a complete overhaul of the newspaper. This means that my game column is still in (yay!) albeit a bit shortened. Right now it looks like the “Games//” column will be published every Tuesday (instead of Friday). This week I wrote about the lack of media literacy among students and adolescents and why there should be more playing games in classrooms.

Met ministers die denken dat Wordfeud een studentenvereniging is, is het geen wonder dat het onderwijs flink achterloopt.

Download article (.pdf)