During my master's degree in business communication at the University of Leuven (Belgium), I researched indie game development in an international context, and more specifically, the education around it. Coming from a traditional media course in literature myself, and experiencing the profoundly national nature of it, made me wonder whether new media such as games also experienced this national bias in their curriculum. *Spoiler alert: they do not, or at least not really. 

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For the research, I interviewed 16 scholarly professionals in four European countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Scotland and Sweden). The in-depth conversations yielded a wealth of information which enabled me to establish a large-scale comparative research project. My respondents were very kind and supportive individuals with a genuine passion for their field; our conversations did not only teach me a lot about the world of indie games but also nourished my continued interest in the medium. 

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From my current perspective, I am especially intrigued in the future possibilities of games and experiential play, and how advertising can explore those. The potential of this rather unexplored field in marketing is something that I would love to do more research in.