This timeline focuses on the innovations that led to the development of Dear Esther, and its impact on the initiation of the arts-house gaming movement. Dear Esther is one of a very small group of games that focuses on literature and a purple prose narrative style within interactive storytelling, as opposed to action-based gameplay. This game is particularly unusual due to its community-based development and subsequent importance to the gaming field. It should be noted that many academics and gamers find the label 'art house game' to be divisive; the label is used here simply as the common genre term.;xNLx;;xNLx;Art Game Overview: Wikipedia (2017): [Link_text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_game);xNLx;;xNLx;(Wikipedia, 2017a)
Nintendo was formulated by Fusajiro Yamauchi as a small family business producing handmade and hand-painted Hanafuda cards.
Gaming has been a central part of human culture for millennia, with games found in archaeological sites across many parts of the world.
Innovations for blinded soldiers in listened to rather than read narrative incidentally helped paved the way for narrative-driven games.
The first full-length audiobook is recorded, of the short story Typhoon, read by BBC announcer Anthony McDonald. (Malvern, 2016a)
The book Homo Ludens ("Man the Player") is written by John Huizinga, discussing the play element of culture and society.
Nuclear physicist Edward Condon designs the Nimatron for the Westinghouse Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.
A gradual series of steps were instrumental in leading to the eventual creation of videogames, particularly in game-based digital developments.
Gamebooks, or interactive fiction, begin to be released for children and young adults.
The development of narrative-driven Role Playing Games (RPGs) highlights the integration history between gaming and narrative storytelling.
In 1951 the British computer company Ferranti develops NIMROD, the first ever gaming computer, as an exhibit for the Exhibition of Science.
The British Go Association is formed in 1953. In contrast to rigidly rule-based chess, Go is rhizomatic with potentially unlimited moves.
Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen of the MIT conceive Spacewar! the first, now legendary, influential computer game.
In response to rapidly expanding television use, American engineer Ralph Baer began experimenting with a method to play games on the television.
Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari, creates Arcade Pong! based on his experiences playing on the PDP-1 whilst at College.
Interactive fiction and board games jointly progressed into tabletop and board-based RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons.
Building on the success of the arcade game Pong! developed in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell, Atari dedicate a team to building Pong! for home gaming.
Julian Jayes publishes The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, in an attempt to define the origins of the inner narrative.
Pong!'s sales lead Atari to develop and release the first home console; the Atari VCS.
Theories on play and gaming, narratology, learning styles, and the inner narrative amongst others all have connections to the development of gaming.
A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia by Deleuze and Guattari is released in France in 1980.
Desperate for a smash-hit to downplay competition, Atari release Space Invaders, a console version of a Japanese arcade game.
Marie-Laure Ryan begins her works on narratology, particularly on narratology in new media forms.
Video games could not have gained importance within a capitalist society without a strong economic foothold.
Despite plummeting video game sales and an apparent loss of interest, Nintendo releases their new NES in the US and Japan.
First released just in Japan as the SG-1000, Sega updated, rebranded, and released the Master System worldwide in 1985.
In 1990, Dan McAdam's work on the inner narrative, The Person: An Introduction to Personality Psychology was published and attained rapid accord.
In 1993, both DOOM and Myst are released for PC.
Sony releases the new Playstation console.
EverQuest, the first MMORPG, is released and becomes phenomenally popular.
Playstation establishes an indie game growth studio in the SIE Santa Monica Studios on Silicon Beach.
Microsoft enter the console gaming arena with the first ever Xbox.
The International Journal of Computer Game Research releases the first journal volume of gaming theory under the banner of Game Studies.
The youth of Game Studies as an accepted area of academia sparked some dispute regarding what form the nature of study should take.
Lionhead Studios releases the first of its player-beloved Fable games, a fantasy RPG, to the Xbox Console.
Dr Dan Pinchbeck, eventual founder of The Chinese Room, begins releasing academic papers on the use of narrative in gaming.
Play! A Video Game Symphony is the first ever videogame music concert, and is held in the Rosemont Theatre in Rosemont, Illinois.
A series of gaming theory essays are released by Alexander Galloway.
thechineseroom is developed at the University of Portsmouth by Dr Dan Pinchbeck.
A new research programme conducted by the University of Illinois concludes strategic video gaming improves critical cognitive skills in older adults.
Tale-Of-Tales releases the game The Path, a short story horror interaction of Little Red Riding Hood.
The game Dear Esther is released as a reconfiguration of its original form as a Half Life 2 mod.
Limbo by Playdead is released as a platformer art-house game that focuses on a nightmarish dreamscape.
In late 2011, Grendel Games completed work on the Virtual Endosuite.
French company Amuse Me release customised game development options where purchasers can create a video game of their own life.
The Museum of Modern Art opens the first part of a growing video game modern art installation, sparking contention in the art world.
Douglas Rushkoff releases his book, Present Shock, which outlines the concept of narrative collapse.
SIE Santa Monica Studios announced layoffs from their core God of War team, despite being an indie game development studio.
Dear Esther named as one of the leading games in the art-house gaming movement by BBC Culture. (Warr, 2014).
Grendel Games releases the laparoscopic controller to accompany the game UnderGround, an entertainment RPG designed for surgical training.
Considered the spiritual sequel to Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is released as a second interactive story by The Chinese Room.
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