I never pass on an invitation, especially one that involves gratuitous amounts of alcohol ánd videogames!

VGVisionary will be attending the ‘uWink Hollywood & Highland Media Preview Invite’ and provide some coverage on this newest addition to uWink’s chain of restaurants!

As Nolan Bushnell said during the MI6 Game Marketing Conference:

“A drunk with a credit card is a wonderful thing.”

How does he know me so well?

Back when the project was still called the Dutch Game Factory, I had the privilege to experience how this project got set up from scratch. It took Viktor Wijnen, DGG’s business director, a motherload of work, planning and meetings to get this off the ground. Now they’re ready to officially launch it:

“During the Expo at the NLGD Festival of Games, to be held from the 18th to 20th of June, Dutch Game Garden will officially open its doors. The kickoff will be delivered on June 19th, with an introduction of already involved partners, a launch of the Developer’s Club, the Incubator and the Business Center plans, and of course a collective toast. Besides this festive event it is of course possible to meet us at our festival booth during the entire Expo.”

Source: DutchGameGarden.nl

The ambiance during the LA Games & Mobile Forum at the Hollywood Roosevelt on 7000 Hollywood Boulevard proved to be quite the opposite of recent assumptions. Hollywood is more then interested in gaming and they weren’t shy to show it either! To quote Sandi Isaacs, Senior VP of Interactive & Mobile at Paramount Pictures, “Hollywood and games are collaborating!” I gave her my card after hearing that, of course.

I hung out with my new buddies Scott Steinberg (Embassy Consulting) and Rob Welkner (Coin-Op.TV).

Wherever there’s a game conference, event or party, you will find…

The Three Amigos!

Remediation anyone? Check this out.

One of my dreams as an aspiring academic just came true. Oh boy, that was fracking awesome! I was invited to give a presentation on ‘social play through participatory culture‘ for a class called “The Gaming Mind” at the Communication Studies department of UCLA. Since I heard the class has been deeply involved in the hardcore essence of game studies, I decided to introduce the students to some jewels of game culture research: modding, e-sports and machinima.

I spoke.

They learned.

We lol’d at some machima.

So now Antwerp has some big e-sports event coming up in July. Great! Doing some little digging on the whole matter brought back nostalgic feelings of my own enthusiastic entrepreneurial splurges back in the day when I considered wearing white socks was the most normal thing on earth. Seems some fresh company called GameVibes is organizing the lot, doing a great job at it from the size of the prize vault & sponsors backing up the event.

But I was talking about nostalgia. Ah yes, the good old days. When making money out of e-sports seemed so realistic, pitching big concepts to new media illiterate conglomerates was a daily business and reaching CEOs for sponsorships was done in less then three phone calls.

So here’s the CEO of GameVibes, a young man called Steven Leunens, the person behind the successfull TEK9 e-sports team, who instantly gained my respect by stating that he speaks 5 (!) languages. Sadly, he has not been able to cover up his rather fresh nature, as you might notice from his distinctly ‘collegesque’ facebook picture ready to be Googled by any random corporate advisor. Luckily, it’s right in between a large collection of interviews and success stories that could easily balance off that greenish tint on the young lad’s apparel.

I wish the two lads from GameVibes a lot of luck with their event. Judging from their partners, they might just pull it off!

Don’t you just love to see young entrepreneurs going at it like that? Their moms must be proud.

I don’t agree with the message. It makes it look like videogames are to blame for fatter kids and we all know that’s not true.

The idea that your strenght and fitness is transferred into the game itself is one I really hope to see in the future. It’ll pack up a lot of gyms.Or massively drop the sales of FPS games.

First pictures just got in! As far as my eyes can tell from over here in Los Angeles, everyone is having a great time exploring ‘our world’ at the Beeld en Geluid GameXperience. VGVisionary representative Sebastiaan will be going back to also cover the next two days, so be sure to say hi to him if you get the chance! Click here to view the pictures on the VGVisionary Flickr

Just got back from seeing Iron Man and it was AWESOME.

It took them a while to figure it out, but the guys over at Marvel sure got it right this time! Having their own production studio must have made a huge difference. This movie is clearly tailored for the hard core, but manages to compell any person that is not familiar with the Marvel Universe (I’m looking at you, Europe). The comic book culture here in the US is compelling, fanatic and dedicated. The audience at Iron Man was the same.

They loved it and so did I. Now if only they could get it right with the videogame as well…

Oh, and as far this picture goes, just check out the movie and you’ll understand. Haha!