Jury Members 2021

Aran Koning is part of Sokpop, a video game collective that releases a new game every month for their subscription service on Patreon. The last 3 years he has released more than 20 games in all different kinds of genres!

Bastiaan has worked as a gaming journalist and reviewer in the Netherlands for over a decade. He has covered the industry at big, general news outlets such as NRC Handelsblad and RTL Nieuws, while also working for specialized media like Gamer.nl and Eurogamer. Right now, he’s responsible for news and reviews at both NU.nl and Algemeen Dagblad.

For nearly 12 years, following his role as SVP Marketing at Sulake (Habbo Hotel), Christian has been active as a consultant for game studios, growing revenue from existing players, or optimising the acquisition of new players. He has worked with studios like WildWorks, Stardoll, Nickelodeon and Glu Mobile, holding positions as Senior Producer, Studio Lead, CMO, Publisher and Managing Director.

Céline Veltman is an artist based in Utrecht, Netherlands. She is best known for her work on Hidden Folks and various other works that mix digital and traditional art – often experimenting with various mediums; hardware, photography, or materials like paints and pencils. She is currently Art Director for the sequel of Tijmen Tio / Sokpop’s Simmiland amongst various other personal and unannounced projects.

Eric Bartelson has been working as a game journalist for magazines like PC Zone Benelux and GameQuest since the nineties. He co-founded Control Magazine and organized events like Control Conference, Control Gamelab and the former Dutch Game Awards. Nowadays he works as a freelance journalist for various magazines, websites and tv.

GlitchKraft (they/them) is a content creator on Twitch. They started their gaming journey as a kid on NES and SEGA Mega Drive. After spending many years playing MMORPGs together with people from all around the globe they evolved into a true social gamer. Streaming on Twitch allows Glitch to finally experience all those amazing single player games while still having fun social interactions with their wholesome community! Glitch has a passion for indie games, which now feature regularly in their daily streams.https://www.twitch.tv/glitchkraft

As the Legacy Portfolio Manager, Juney is responsible for exploring opportunities for the Paradox Interactive portfolio of games no longer in active development. She was formerly the Lead Producer at SOEDESCO Publishing, where she built the publishing pipeline & team for PC & console and supported the worldwide release of 50+ games digitally & at retail, while at the same time developing & running the in-house porting team. Prior to that, she obtained an MSc. degree in Game and Media Technology from Utrecht University, alongside organising and running mid to large scale events in the game development industry.

With over 20 years of working experience, Leon has ventured into almost all areas of the entertainment industry before landing his dream job at videogame powerhouse Ubisoft. Now, after 15 years of working his way up at Ubisoft, Leon is Director of International Events and leads a team of 6 professionals who all together are responsible for producing the biggest events in the videogame industry like E3, Gamescom and Ubisoft Forward. On top of that he started the Black Game Pros initiative aimed at generating and fostering more representation and diversity in the videogame industry.

Sometimes lovingly called the Queen of all things Indie, Sophia is a Video Game Consultant, primarily at Steel Media (Pocket Gamer) as their Developer Evangelist, Big Indie Pitch Manager, and LaunchPad Manager, but also at Chorus Worldwide as an Indie Game Publishing & PR Consultant. She is also a regular speaker at numerous conferences around the world, including keynoting Tokyo Game Show.  Additionally, she has written for magazines, online publications, and books on all things video games, whilst also writing a thesis on Nintendo and Japan’s industry as part of a Masters degree in Japanese Studies.

Wytze works as curator at The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, one of the world’s largest audiovisual archives. His work, among other things, focuses on preserving Dutch game heritage as part of the institute’s vast media archive, for future generations to play and see. Currently, he’s developing a new museum for Sound and Vision, in which games will play an integral part.