The Dutch Institute of Image and Sound recently hired me to be a part of designing and establishing the content and character of their latest GameXperience event. But what’s so special about that? Well, the fact that this was a unique occasion for 5-12 year old kids and their parents to learn from, talk  with and ask every imaginable question during a collection of workshops by more than twenty Dutch game developers. No marketing buffers or campaign attached.

Check out the extensive photo coverage done by Patrick over on the VGV Flickr gallery, right here.

Especially since a hell of a lot happened in that period of time! This summer was all work and almost no play for little old me, but I came out quite victorious! A couple of new jobs and a trip to GamesCom Cologne filled with assignments kept me busy for quite a while. As for GamesCom, you can check out my pictures on the VGV Flickr gallery, right here.

Haven’t had a chance to write up a lot of stories from GamesCom yet, but be sure to check out Bashers.nl for a couple of them soon! The above comic version of me was drawn by the art director of Fairy Tale fights. One of the best interviews I had at the show.

The circle is complete. My dream has come true. After organizing game events, doing research on the game industry and writing for game magazines, I’ve finally got to work on a game! My team was an awesome bunch of creative folk to work with, so I guess that worked out quite well. Ladies and gentlemen, this is ‘Pulse‘:

And guess what, we won! Our rhythmic co-op music game won the popular vote. Stay tuned for a playable version!

Next personal goal: voice-acting!

I’ll be teaming up with the fresh folk from Monobanda this weekend to take the gold at Dutch edition of the IGDA’s Global Game Jam. Sure to be some fun times!

Even though I just started contributing to Bashers.nl, I was also invited to offer my Top 5 gaming experiences of 2008. Having had an adventurous year, I decided to look back on my various first time visits to some legendary and super fun game (related) events. Good times.

Its written in Dutch, but that won’t stop you from figuring out the surprising #1!

In case you were wondering what the NPOX event from back in November was all about, they just released this nifty event report.

Good timing to have gotten my article on this year’s Tokyo Game Show 2008 in there. Right before the visitors of ‘Het Media Event’ bought up all the GMR Magazines at the HUB booth.

Too bad nobody could give me an exact count. I bet it’s in the thousands. No! Millions!

Next time you put your top of the line Apple computers on display with a working internet connection, make sure you block porn sites. Macs can do that, right?

Even though the only game publisher at ‘Het Multimedia Event’ was Microsoft, Call of Duty: World at War was playable at 4 different gaming booths. It was for sale at many more. Let’s start the count, shall we?

• - MSI’s booth: playable
• - Microsoft’s booth: playable
• - ESL’s booth: playable
• - Asus’s booth: playable
• - Game shop Twente booth: for sale
• - Random booth: for sale
• - We got tired and stopped looking

The unexpected happened during ‘Het Multimedia Event‘: Sony and Nintendo didn’t show up. When there’s a big game related consumer event around the corner, we usually take it for granted that the ‘big three’ are in it together. On the other hand, we heard rumors of 100+ demo booths at the Microsoft booth.

We only counted 48…

Have you ever met a person with an extremely funny name and tried not to laugh, but horribly failed at it? That’s how Patrick and I felt when walking into this event. What was formerly known as the HCC dagen, something I considered a traditional annual meeting for the PC and game afficionados of Holland, has changed over the years. A lot. Now it’s known as ‘Het Multimedia Event’. Cleverly translates into ‘THE Multimedia Event‘ in English.

Main cause of all the major changes? Lot’s of politics and different groups with different interests. Sigh.

The result? Nothing to be happy about, but we had fun. It reminded me of this year’s E3: The event has changed, but thank god the people haven’t.

The future? Let’s hope the visitor count was good. The event will need to build up some serious street cred before next year. If you guys are reading this, VGV also does consulting and event management !

Some visitors we spoke told us they thought the event didn’t live up to it’s name or goal. We just felt sorry for the guy trying desperately to sell sushi in the gaming area. He even lowered his prices twice, with no success…

VGVisionary once again invaded the annual NPOX Festival for public broadcasters, providing gaming fun and wisdom for all. This time both Ubisoft and Activision joined up. A lot of happy faces were made thanks to the recently released titles both publishers brought along.

Check out the pictures Patrick took at the VGV Flickr gallery, right here.

This year’s Tokyo Game Show was a blast. Not much writing or coverage got done during the show itself, so guess what I’m working on right now. Also managed to do some quick event photography aside from taking notes and meeting people!

You might have already guessed the main theme of the Tokyo Game Show 2008 gallery on the VGV Flickr, right here.

I will mostly be doing some I tried to do some guest-blogging for Bashers.nl and some other writing during my stay. Not a lot to mention right now. Busy busy busy :3

From now on happy fun times let begin!