Hey Bonegolem & others,

(credit goes to Rogier Kahlmann)

Rogier Kahlmann found a whole lot of Conflicts of Interests within the dutch indie scene.
http://www.rogierkahlmann.com/tussen-journalistiek-en-evangelisme/#more-1926

Since it's in dutch, I will them lay out here for your convenience. I know a lot is unclear, we should
get a skype call to get things cleared out. it's quite difficult shit to go through.

It's about a whole lot of Dutch indie hugboxing a la San Francisco, especially in the serious gaming scene.

Here are a few examples:
_____

Niels 't Hooft

https://archive.is/EuWrv

in the article he gave the word to Collin van Ginkel of the company Two Tribes.
At time of publication he had done a number of writing jobs for them. No disclosure.

http://twotribes.com/message/toki-tori-2-update-28/
https://archive.is/g5pRa

(credit where due: he pointed out the shit directly below about Jan)
____

Jan Meijroos (Power Unlimited) https://twitter.com/janmeijroos

Wrote PR-material for Uncharted (working for Sony) in the form of a glossy magazine about Nathan Drake,
because Sony gave Power Unlimited a bag of money...
http://gamer.nl/articles/column/gamevisie-niels-t-hooft-drakes-dependence/
https://archive.is/Dt2TU

-

.... while also reviewing the game.
- http://www.pu.nl/reviews/uncharted-3-drakes-deception
- https://archive.is/Hwc83
___

Niels 't Hooft & Arjan Terpstra.

https://dutchgamesassociation.nl/users/19-niels-t-hooft
https://dutchgamesassociation.nl/users/83-arjan-terpstra https://twitter.com/Ranja72

Both write a lot for the Dutch Games Association. It's not a newspaper, it's a PR agency that is mostly guided to get
government funding for developers, because that's the only way those shmucks know how to make money because
they are so incompetent it's not even funny.

The articles on the site therefore are also mostly made for the Dutch government.
https://dutchgamesassociation.nl/thoughts/235#comment_155
https://archive.is/jrHtO

The DGA is located at the site of the Dutch Game Garden, an office in Utrecht they got from the government
with low hire rates so startups could get there. It's mostly a bunch of indie filth like Vlambeer that rule and passionate
young devs that come and go because they get bullied out.

(fun bit: Dutch GamerGate went there for their group photo at the end of GGinNL meetup https://twitter.com/bart3rio/status/657663594159591425
I'm second on the right, with the blue tie. )

The next part gets complicated, so bear with me.


DGA sponsors and works together with Control, Control writes for DGA-involved companies

The DGA sponsors Control Magazine, the one with Matthijs Dierckx we saw earlier. They also sponsor the dutch game awards
we talked about earlier and where Matthijs got his entry on Deepfreeze from.
https://archive.is/8sOCv

The DGA, Control and the Dutch Game Garden worked together during a project.
http://www.economicboardutrecht.nl/sites/nl.economicboardutrecht.www/files/2012_TFI_Gamesmonitor.pdf
I quote: "In hoofdstuk 1 schetsen Olaf Koops en Thomas Bachet (TNO) een overzicht van de gamesindustrie en de rol van de verschillende spelers daarbinnen: uitgevers, ontwikkelaars en distributeurs. Met de opkomst van e-commerce en online gaming vloeien de rollen van ontwikkelaar, uitgever en distributeur steeds meer in elkaar over. Koops en Bachet hebben, in nauwe samenwerking met brancheorganisatie Dutch Games Association en vakmagazine Control, een lijst samengesteld van de bedrijven die de kern vormen van de Nederlandse gamesindustrie. Deze gegevens zijn de basis voor de meting van aantallen bedrijven, banen, een schatting van de omzet van de bedrijfstak, en de spreiding over regio's."

Translated: "In chapter 1 write Olaf Knoops and Thomas Bachet (TNO) an overview of the gaming industry and the role of the active players inside it; publishers, developers and distributers. With the rise of e-commerce and online gaming the roles of developer, publisher and distributer intertwine more and more. Knoops and Bachet have, in close co-operation with the DGA and Control, compiled a list of companies who form the core of the Dutch gaming industry. This data is the base to measure the amount of companies, jobs, profits made and distribution across regions".

https://archive.is/b7iVR
https://archive.is/jrHtO
Arjan and Niels here talk about people who are involved with the DGA. Not really much of a CoI since it's obscure
and since DGA didn't get them to write the article, but here is where it gets more interesting.

In 2013, both of them wrote for Control Magazine on this thing for the Dutch Game Garden.
Not only is the DGA located there, there are also a lot of DGA-involved companies in the pdf:
http://www.dutchgamegarden.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documenten/SEA_English.pdf
Arjan also wrote this (same kind of problem): http://issuu.com/controlmagazine/docs/serious_games_2013_by_control_magaz

During the same time period, Arjan and Niels wrote a lot for NRC Handelsblad (commerce newspaper with a lot
of journalist writing there sometimes) and its spinoff NRC.Next

A lot of DGA-involved companies got publishing:
- Grendel: http://www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/2014/02/20/ziekenhuis-en-verzekeraar-investeren-in-zorggames-1347917
- Ranj: http://www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/2013/01/07/kraanmachinist-leert-hijsen-met-een-game-1194186
- Gamious: http://www.nrcnext.nl/blog/2010/12/02/gamious-een-nieuwe-game-uitgeverij/
- Paladin Studios: http://www.nrcreader.nl/artikel/2044/gamen-voor-zielerust-en-zelfinzicht
- Dutch Game Garden (where DGA is located), also Grendel Games: http://www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/2014/06/03/zelfs-premier-wil-meer-weten-over-games-1383317

https://archive.is/pABFA
In this article for KIJK does Niels write for the Global Game Jam, which is also hosted at the site of the Dutch Game Garden. For the events does one
need to buy tickets, but that is not mentioned in the article.

Niels often posts 'studio visits' from Power Unlimited editor Jurjen Tiersma on the site of the DGA. These articles (translated to English) can be found both on the DGA site
and on Power Unlimited. Once again it's about DGA-involved companies like Tingly (where that S.O.B. Mark Overmars works); Tingly is a casual-clone builder that also got attention
from Arjan on NRC.  http://www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/2014/02/14/een-puzzelspelletje-als-wenskaart-1342990

what kind of game you may ask? Well... it's about greeting cards which have small puzzle games in them. What a hardcore game magazine wants with them
is unknown and it boggles my mind.

Jurjen Tiersma (Power Unlimited).
https://twitter.com/jurjent
http://www.jurjentiersma.com/
http://indieprize.org/europe2015/ <- judge alongside Zoya Street from FemFreq.

According to Rogier's article:

"Jurjen stated [to me] to have full freedom in what he does and what studios he visits. However, 32 out of 38 of te studios he visited where related to the Dutch Game Garden/Dutch Game Association. This while most Dutch game studios, which is up to 200 or according to Control's Gamesmonitor even 500, are not related to either of them."

which is very interesting but hard to prove. Anyway, let's take a look at the things he did since 1992.

He stated he worked for Nintendo (at least in 1992) as Games counselor. Whatever that means. https://archive.is/UA8Rh#selection-107.1-121.72
According to his page, he translated manuals, press messages, product sheets and advertisements.
Since 1994 he wrote a lot for Nintendo Magazine. https://archive.is/UA8Rh#selection-163.4-169.89

But that means he shouldn't write about Nintendo that much, not without disclosure. And he does it a lot. http://www.pu.nl/tag/jurjen-tiersma/

He left Nintendo in 2000 (unsure, but nothing about Nintendo after that year) and in 2001 joined Power Unlimited. He wanted to make a magazine together with Niels, but he
stopped that after the offer from PU. However, he still worked for EA and other companies at the time as translator for games like Simscity 4 and Pandora's Box. It is likely he had a lot of CoI's in the magazines, but those cannot be found.

regards