The Game As many of you may already know, an online game called Among Us has seemed to have blown up out of nowhere. It feels as though one day I just woke up and BAM. My whole Instagram and YouTube feeds were full of Among Us gameplay and content. I had no idea what it was and never really looked back.…

Socially speaking, (video) games are often dismissed as “childish”. Indeed, those playing games, physical or digital, are often seen as having nothing better to do, and engaging in something that is quaintly inconsequential, read: a waste of time. Yet despite that, games can already offer insight into economies via virtual markets and, as researchers discovered in late 2005, a new potential for…
I started playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons in April. Almost every Youtuber was talking about the game and I wanted to know what this hype was all about. So, I watched a few Animal Crossing videos, persuaded my boyfriend (who owns a Nintendo Switch), and purchased the game. I started playing the game during the lockdown in the Netherlands, so there was…
Often, when we think of heritage, our minds direct towards displays of craftsmanship, monumentality– big stones put up by hairy men in loincloths or photo-realistic paintings that you had to write an essay on in high school. Naturally, we seek to preserve these things, to restore them if necessary, and there are means of restoring fine art and conserving it so it…
As I am using these articles to explore the opportunities of several digital media for historians, I would like to focus today on the subject of video games, which have become an influential part of mainstream culture. Historians might be a bit reluctant to discuss them in combination with historical research, but I would actually like to argue in favour of this.…


You might enjoy video games, but did you know you can make a living out of playing them? This got me thinking, so I started investigating what it takes to become a professional video game player. To clarify, in this blogpost I will examine Twitch streamers in particular. I am aware of other platforms such as this exist, but because this one…
Ah yes, the greatest danger of the 21st century, responsible for the most violent behaviours, the supreme source of all violence. If you had not read the title you would probably have thought of something completely different. That is because you, like many others, are a person of culture as well (Arakawa Under the Bridge reference). Unless you have just emerged from…