Everything that happened last year caused me to go out of the running for a long time. My productivity suffered and I disappeared off the radar for a while. This year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco was kind of my official comeback and I was very pleased with all the positive support I received from dear friends, close colleagues and awesome acquaintances there. Though the amount of writing I’ve done is little and will never take on the full-time proportions it once did, it’s a passion of mine that I’ll never let go. Here’s what I wrote since my last wrap-up update more than 8 months ago.

WINMOBILEFANS.COM
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- March 29th, 2012, ‘Windows Phone goodness from the Global Game Jam 2012‘

SOCIALITYROCKS.COM
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- November 9th, 2011. ‘Story N1: Henric Suuronen, Head of studio – Wooga‘
- November 2nd, 2011. ‘Story N2: Aki Jarvinen, Creative Director Digital Chocolate‘

GAMER.NL
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- April 3rd, 2012. ‘De emotionele reis van Fez-maker Phil Fish‘
- April 3rd, 2012. ‘Een vlugge blik in de Flash Gaming Summit‘
- March 6th, 2012. ‘Stage Game Design in Thailand, het kan!‘
- February 27th, 2012. ‘Voor koffie en Ong Bak bij Studio Hive‘
- November 14th, 2011. ‘Alles in Saints Row: The Third moet grappiger‘
- October 21st, 2011. ‘Gabe Newell: ‘Valve was nooit ontstaan zonder id Software’ ‘
- August 12th, 2011. ‘Flower, Journey en authenticiteit in games‘
- August 10, 2011. ‘Het leven na Braid: Jonathan Blow’s The Witness‘
- August 9, 2011. ‘Gamelegende Richard Garriot over zijn nieuwe bedrijf‘

Many people know me as a guy who can rather easily establish connections around him. Yes, one could even call me a serial networker. It happens without effort, giving me no actual reason NOT to do it in the first place .

So here I am in Thailand, having started my first week attending the Thai Game Jam (TGJ) organized by my good friend and host Ekapong Nopawong, lecturer at the Computer Game Multimedia Department at Rangsit University. I was blessed to meet the game start-up Arkavis there, who also sponsored the food during the TGJ. Later that event, I also bumped into one of the employees of local app developer and incubator Code-App and met with some of the developers from Studio Hive.

I also had the pleasure to get introduced to a couple of interesting local professionals through common friends. One of them is Ferdinand Gutierrez, founder and CEO of the Thai based social game start-up Sandbox Global. Though he’s located in Singapore, I also recently spoke to Juha Paananen, founder and CEO of cross-browser HTML5 social game developer GamesMadeMe. Thanks to Ekapong, I also was able to visit and talk with GameIndy.com, an MMO game developer and one of the biggest game companies in Thailand.

All in all you could say I’ve had a great start exploring the Thai game industry and found many interesting opportunities already. Now let’s see what it all brings in the future.

And suddently we’re in a new year with a lot of new experiences, both good and bad. Priorities shifted and feelings were followed. So here I am, one week into my trip to Thailand, where I am planning on assisting the game development department of Rangsit University in getting some stuff done. The university got hit bad during the recent floods in Thailand, resulting in more than one semester of delays and major damages to the university’s facilities. But that’s all about to change in the next couple of weeks, starting with a major boost in morale among the students thanks to the excellently carried out Thai edition of the Global Game Jam 2012. I was invited to give a talk at the start of the Jam and joined in the fun together with several students from Silpakorn University to create our game Little Phoenix.

In other words, I had a great start for the journey that lies ahead of me. Part of which I intend to use to explore both myself and this beautifulcountry, as the Thai game industry, animation industry and toy industry. Adventure awaits!

There is a certain inexplicable sense of achievement and joy that comes with seeing your articles published somewhere, be it a website, magazine or book. This feeling is only amplified if this involved articles that, due to unforeseen circumstances, risked never being published in their original form or by the original outlet they were made for. Having the chance to still save those pieces and see the people involved in them receive the attention they deserve, is heart warming.

CRITICALGAMER.CO.UK
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– July 20th, 2011. ‘KBA Voice Productions’ Khris Brown on twenty years of voice casting for LucasArts, and beyond’
– July 12th, 2011. ‘Kenn Hoekstra on Raven Software, leaving the three year death march and setting up Category 6′
– July 11th, 2011. ‘Interview: Cory Doctorow on the game industry’
– June 30th, 2010. ‘Shogun 2 Total War – Trimming a ten year old bonsai tree.’

GAMER.NL (Dutch)
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– July 6th, 2011. ‘Redlynx: ‘We maken games waar we zelf in geloven’
– June 30th, 2011. ‘The Darkness II: ‘Besturing demonische armen nu intuïtief’
– June 28th, 2011. ‘Digital Extremes: ‘Star Trek-game wordt een buddy-movie’

With other distractions having grabbed my attention recently, it might be a better idea to present a quarterly wrap-up this time.

GAMER.NL (Dutch)
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June 22nd, 2011. ‘Binary Domain: een schietgrage versie van Yakuza‘
June 18th, 2011. ‘In gesprek met SEGA en Platinum Games over Anarchy Reigns‘

BASHERS.NL (Dutch)
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June 23rd, 2011. ‘SOCOM 4: Special Forces – Zonder Navy Seals, maar wel met pit‘
June 15th, 2011. ‘XCOM gaat toch voor vijanden in menselijke vorm, gameplay lijkt nu erg bekend‘
June 8th, 2011. ‘The Darkness 2 wordt ‘nog grafischer’’
June 8th, 2011. ‘Dead Island onderscheidt zich met RPG-elementen, open wereld en melee‘
June 8th, 2011. ‘Skyrim is Fallout 3 met zwaarden en draken‘
May 25th, 2011. ‘De indiegames op Nordic‘
May 12th, 2011. ‘Nordic scoop: Prince of Persia-bedenker toont zijn allereerste game‘
May 18th, 2011. ‘Festival of Games: Gesprek met Patrick Liu van DICE over zijn carrière als producer‘
May 9th, 2011. ‘Festival of Games: In gesprek met Jeroen Elfferich, pionier in interactieve tv‘
May 3rd, 2011. ‘Festival of Games: In gesprek met Leisure Suit Larry-maker Al Lowe‘

I was invited to speak about this and four other topics at the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in Finland. This lecture explains the importance of attending conferences and the best way to get to them. The topics covered in part 1 are:
1.40 Game conferences
2.00 How to get to conferences
6.30 My own story
9.30 Volunteer
10.10 Cover an event as press
11.15 Bluff it till you make it
12.00 Preparing for a game conference
12.10 Step 1: Organize getting a hostel with friends and peers
13.15 Step 2: The basics
16.00 Step 3: Don’t go camping
16.30 Step 4: Do your research
18.10 Step 5: Network (randomly)

You can find part 2 over here.

I was invited to speak about this and four other topics at the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in Finland. This lecture explains how you should understand game journalists as people and treat the importance having the game press write about their products. The topics covered in part 1 are:

1.45 Quick recap: How press Works
2.30 Who are these people?
3.30 Similarities between press
6.40 Brand Boyer’s GDC 2010 rant
7.45 When things go wrong in game journalism
9.45 The unwritten rule of game journalism
10.30 Why you should know this stuff
12.00 Know your real enemy, the big publishers
14.30 Don’t use their tricks
15.45 What happens behind closed doors
17.00 Wake up and smell the coffee

You can find part 2 over here.

I was invited to speak about this and four other topics at the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in Finland. This first lecture explains to the students how they should understand and treat the importance of pr & marketing in the creation of their games in order to one day turn them into products. The topics covered in part 1 are:

2.00 Traditional game marketing
2.45 Marketing basics
3.15 Why you need marketing
3.45 Why you need need it even more
4.00 Why you need it forever
4.40 The obvious chores
5.30 What you can do right away in four easy steps
6.00 Step 1: PR ≠ Marketing
9.00 Step 2: Create Assets
10.15 Step 3: Join (and participate in) Communities
11.00 Step 4: Understand how press works
13.45 Why you don’t need marketing
14.30 Some handy tricks
14.45 #1 Use SEO and be unique
17.15 #2 Don’t forget social media

You can find part 2 over here.

I’ll be at the Kajaani university’s Kajak game development lab program this week, lecturing about various subjects including game marketing, game journalism, conferences & networking, (self)publishing and staying true to your own beliefs.

The next couple of weeks are going to be all about diving back into my journalistic activities. I’ll covering and doing interviews at both the NLGD Festival of Games in Utrecht, The Netherlands and the Nordic Game Conference in Malmö, Sweden.

Hope to see you all there!

While still freelancing for multiple outlets including Gamesauce.org, I’m happy to announce my first official (side)step into game development that does not include an internship or a 48 hour game jam. As of a couple of weeks, I’ve joined game developers Veli Vainlio and Ilkka Lein in their efforts to build the cute mass-runner Snobli Run into a succesful game on the iOS platform. You can follow our progress on Facebook, Twitter or just have a look at our development blog.

So it’s official, I’ve given up my position as European Editor for Gamesauce.org.

Though I’ve very much enjoyed working with the Gamesauce staff and growing the online portal for the past 8 months, it’s time to move on and find a new challenge. No worries if you’ve just been interviewed by me and expect something to be published soon, I will still be writing for Gamesauce on a freelance basis for the time being!

Even though writing about the industry was a great learning experience, I’ve realized that I need to pursue my desire to get involved in the production and business behind games. I’m not really sure what kind of direction I will end up pursuing, but I already know that it will involve finding an entry level job that let’s me learn the ropes from the start, allow me to work my way up and hopefully offer me the following opportunities:

1. Having to work with a team of talented people I can learn from.

2. My efforts must result in the sales (or at least promotion) of high quality game titles.

3. Become involved in the intricacies of the game development, both in the sides of business and production.

January required a lot of prepartions to be made for both Casual Connect Europe and GDC two weeks later. Little time was left for anything else.

January 27th, 2011. ‘Studio profile: Nikitova LCC in Kyiv‘
January 19th, 2011. ‘Studio Spotlight: Codeglue in Rotterdam’
January 5th, 2011. ‘Gazillion’s Stuart Moulder on being a product person, loving casual and what two decades of expertise can get you’

And here I was thinking November was a slow month for content! Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2011 to all. Here’s what got finished in December:

Gamesauce

December 31st, 2010. ‘Easy Studios’ Ben Cousins on Avoiding Disasters, Building a Career in Games, the Sacrifices for Control and the Benefit of Being First (part 2)‘

December 29th, 2010. ‘Redlynx’s Antti Ilvessuo on their Multi-platform Background, Tuning to Perfection, Staying Indie and the Future of Digital‘

December 13th, 2010. ‘Gearbox’s Steve Gibson on the catharsis of Borderlands and promoting a legend‘

December 9th, 2010. ‘Easy studios’ Ben Cousins on pioneering free-to-play at EA, his career in digital and how to be the best producer you can possibly be (part 1)‘

December 3rd, 2010. ‘Uvula’s Keita Takahashi on looking beyond videogames, making sacrifices and convincing developers to look beyond platforms‘