It was an early monday morning when Mathijs van der Kroft and I met. We got some coffee and
then walked to the cafeteria. Instead of sitting down in the student area, we walked straight to
the teachers’ lounge. Mathijs is an online marketing lecturer at the NHTV, but just like me, he
was once restricted to the student area, as he started out as an IMEM student. Next to that he
works as an online marketer at Capcom Benelux. I turned on my recorder and asked him what
he wanted to be when he was younger. “I actually never really gave it that much thought as a
kid, but the dad of one of the kids in my neighbourhood was a policeman and that was really
awesome. That was really this over-romanticised image of a secret agent though.” Something
that did grab his attention as a kid were games. “When I was a little kid, the first recollection
of video games I have is my brother playing Super Mario Brothers on the NES. The moment
I played Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, I knew my course was set.”
“Constantly seek your own boundaries and
then go beyond them; it’s so much fun.”
Through his passion for games, Mathijs happened to find the IMEM study
program. “When I graduated high school, I had no idea what I wanted to
do. Back then I knew I wanted to do something with video games, so
everybody told me to go to the NHTV because they offer a gaming
program.” He quickly found out that this program wasn’t what he
wanted to do, but then he found IMEM by accident. “I thought
the program sounded fun, because it talks about media and
entertainment and that’s something I have always been
interested in. I got accepted and I loved it from the very first
day.”
Mathijs’ year was among the first who could choose between a
content, marketing or production specialisation. He didn’t have to think
twice about which specialisation he wanted to do. “I did my internship at a
video game company where I worked as an online marketer and I just fell
in love.” So without hesitation, Mathijs chose to do marketing. “What I like
about marketing so much is that you are the person who helps to convey
a particular story, or let the consumer be a part of a particular story world.
With the power of marketing you can interact with those consumers. I
know it sounds cliché, but you’re really helping to bring an experience
from the creators to a particular person. “In the 8 years I have worked in
marketing, seeing the amazement of the fans when they’re interacting with the game, after
waiting years for it to come out, that just puts a smile on my face.”
Mathijs got offered a job at Bandai Namco, the gaming company he did his 3d year internship at. He
liked it so much that he took the job. Next to working, he was still studying. After graduating from
IMEM, Mathijs decided that he wanted to learn more and he did the Master of Media Innovation (MMI)
at the NHTV. “To learn and to do something new, to constantly seek your own boundaries and then to
go beyond that is just so much fun. To think that you’ll never be able to do something, but