Joost Rietveld

Prior to entering academia, Joost worked as strategic manager for Two Tribes, an independent video game developer in the Netherlands. He helped Two Tribes transition from a work-for-hire model to a digital publishing model. They set up a separate publishing entity for which Joost wrote the business plan and helped raise capital.

When Joost moved to London to pursue his PhD, he founded Strategy Guide, a consultancy centered on the video game industry. Joost keeps close ties with the industry. Recently, Joost was one of the key voices in the regulatory conversation surrounding Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Joost’s submission on cloud gaming was published on the CMA’s merger inquiry landing page and his expert commentary has been covered in various media publications, including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Wired, Polygon, GamesIndustry.biz, GameSpot, Reuters, and many others.

Joost has also been retained as an expert witness in a class-action antitrust lawsuit involving the Steam distribution platform.

Joost publishes Platform Papers—a research blog covering platform competition and Big Tech. The blog is linked to PlatformPapers.com, an online repository that collects and organizes academic research on platform competition across the fields of management, marketing, information systems, and economics. The blog and website are aimed at translating the academic research on platform competition to a wide audience of managers, policy makers, and professionals with an interest in platforms and Big Tech.