the videogame history timeline

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines, and ensures responsible online privacy principles for computer and video games and other entertainment software in Canada and the United States.

The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association (formerly Interactive Digital Software Association).By late 2009, it had assigned nearly 18,000 ratings to titles submitted by more than 350 publishers.

World of Goo is a puzzle game with a strong emphasis on physics, for WiiWare, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (x86 and x86-64) by 2D Boy, an independent game developer consisting of Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, both former Electronic Arts employees. It was nominated for the Seumas McNally grand prize, Design Innovation Award and Technical Excellence at the Independent Games Festival. It was released for the Wii's WiiWare service in North America on 13 October 2008. On 11 November 2008, 2D Boy announced that World of Goo would be released as WiiWare in Europe in lieu of a retail release.

“Milthon Award for Best Mobile Game”. (Festival du Jeu Video). Awarded at the International Mobile Gaming Award in the “Excellence in gameplay” category. Triple finalist in IGF mobile 2009. Named by Apple as one of their 30 "Favorite Games" on the App Store's first birthday.
Develop your telekinetic strength by pushing a Cube within a geometric universe. Platforms, enigmas and reflexes combine to make Edge a rich and very comprehensive game.

The iPhone is a line of Internet- and multimedia-enabled smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPhone functions as a camera phone (also including text messaging and visual voicemail), a portable media player (equivalent to a video iPod), and an Internet client (with e-mail, web browsing, and Wi-Fi connectivity)—using the phone's multi-touch screen to provide a virtual keyboard in lieu of a physical keyboard.

Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was released in the U.S. on December 18, 2007 and the Wii version was released on June 22, 2008. The game was released in Canada for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on December 22, 2007 and for the PlayStation 2 on January 2, 2008.

Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in Australia. The game's development was a result of collaboration between RedOctane and Harmonix to bring a GuitarFreaks-like game to America.

Skate or Die! is a skateboarding game released by Electronic Arts in 1987 for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Apple IIgs, Amstrad CPC, and IBM Compatibles running MS-DOS. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) by Konami, and published by Ultra Games. In 2007, the NES version was re-released for Nintendo's Virtual Console service in Europe and Australia. The Atari ST conversion was contracted to CodeMasters, who contracted Kinetic Designs to do the work.

Skate (marketed as skate.) is a skateboarding video game developed by EA Black Box for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was released in North America on September 17, 2007 for the Xbox 360 and September 24, 2007 for the PlayStation 3 and in Europe on September 28, 2007 for the Xbox 360 and October 5, 2007 for the PlayStation 3. As of February 1, 2008, Skate has outsold the 2007 skateboarding game Tony Hawk's Proving Ground by a ratio of almost 2 to 1 on seventh generation video game consoles.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, released as Tony Hawk's Skateboarding in Europe, is a skateboarding video game. It is the first entry in the Tony Hawk series of video game. It was originally released for the PlayStation on September 30, 1999 and was later ported to the Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and N-Gage. It also received a Game Boy Color adaptation.

God of War II is a hack and slash action-adventure video game and the sequel to the 2005 game God of War for the PlayStation 2. It was released in North America on March 13, 2007, in Europe on April 27, 2007, and May 3, 2007 in Australia. It is the second installment released in the God of War series and fourth chronologically.

God of War is a video game for the PlayStation 2 console released on March 22, 2005. It is an action-adventure game based on Greek mythology. God of War was developed by Sony Computer Entertainment's Santa Monica division. It is the first installment of the God of War series of games and the second chronologically.

Gravitation is a video game about mania, melancholia, and the creative process.

Jason Rohrer is a computer programmer, writer, musician, and game designer. He publishes most of his software under the GNU GPL or into the public domain, but charges for the iPhone ports of his games. He practices simple living and says his family of four has a budget less than $10,000 per year.

The whistle of the leaves with the wind of the forest is brutally interrupted by the appearance of a solitary figure between the branches of the shrubs. The sharping air of the North threat with tearing the clothes of the great horseman, "Sir Fred". His rabid preoccupation for the kidnapping of the princess whom he loves does not appear reflected in his imperturbable expression. He only stops for a moment, with a fleeting blowing to fix, like an arrow, his glance on the walls of the castle and to tighten the teeth with desperation. He never faced so many and so big dangers.

King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, written and designed by Roberta Williams and released in 1998 by Sierra Studios, is the eighth, and currently the final, official computer game in the famous King's Quest series. It is the only game in the series where the main character is neither King Graham nor a member of his family. The game was named King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in the English release, and King's Quest VIII on the German and Spanish releases.

King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride is an adventure game released in 1994 by Sierra On-Line. It featured high-resolution graphics in a style reminiscent of Disney animated films. It is also the only King's Quest game with multiple protagonists, and the only one to divide the story into "chapters."

King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow is the sixth installment in the King's Quest series of adventure games produced by Sierra Entertainment. Written by Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen, KQVI is widely recognized as the high point in the series for its in-depth plot, landmark 3D graphic introduction movie (created by Kronos Digital Entertainment), and professional voice acting (Hollywood actor Robby Benson provided the voice for Prince Alexander, the game's protagonist).

Jane Jensen is the game designer of the popular and critically-acclaimed Gabriel Knight adventure games and author of the novels Judgement Day and Dante's Equation.

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! is a 1990 adventure game released by Sierra. Released in November 1990, it featured a significant improvement in graphics (achieved through the introduction of VGA into the series). It was also the first King's Quest installment to replace the typing user interface with a point-and-click user interface.
King's Quest V won Computer Gaming World's 1991 Adventure Game of the Year award. It was later released as a "talkie" CD-ROM (meaning the characters have voices). The music was MIDI based and written by Mark Seibert and Ken Allen.

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, released in 1988, was the first major graphical computer adventure game with a female protagonist. The player takes on the role of Princess Rosella, daughter of King Graham of Daventry (KQI and KQII) and the twin sister of Gwydion/Alexander (KQIII). KQIV was also one of the first PC games to support a sound card.
This chapter is the only one in the King's Quest series where the action takes place in real-time. The events of the game cover about 24 hours. Some activities must be completed during the day, while other puzzles can be solved only at night.

King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human is the third installment in the King's Quest series of computer games produced by Sierra On-Line. It was the first game in the series not to feature King Graham as the player character.
The game was released for the Apple II and PC in 1986. The latter was the first Sierra game to be DOS-based instead of using a self-booting disk. A year later, it was rereleased with the slightly improved AGI V3 engine.

King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne is the second installment in the King's Quest series created by Sierra Entertainment (formerly Sierra On-Line). It uses the same AGI game engine as King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown and features King Graham as the player character.

Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is a computer adventure game game first released in 1987, the first part of the Leisure Suit Larry series. It was a completely graphical adventure game with 16 color EGA graphics. It utilizes the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine made famous by King's Quest: Quest for the Crown. Originally developed for DOS and the Apple II, it was later ported to other platforms such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS and the TRS-80 Color Computer.

Softporn Adventure was a comedic, adult-oriented text adventure game produced for the Apple II in 1981. The game was created by Chuck Benton and released by On-Line Systems (now known as Sierra Entertainment). This is the only game Sierra Entertainment has published that does not have graphics.

King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is a 1984 computer game, originally published for the IBM PCjr simply as King's Quest. The story and the general design of the game was developed by Roberta Williams. Williams was the chief designer of all official releases of King's Quest, working with the series all the way through to the last official release, King's Quest: Mask of Eternity. The game was originally released simply as King's Quest, the subtitle "Quest for the Crown" was added to the game box in the 5th rerelease (1987), but did not appear in the game itself.

Mystery House is an adventure computer game released in 1980 by Roberta and Ken Williams for the Apple II. The game is remembered as one of the first adventure games to feature computer graphics and the first game produced by On-Line Systems, the company which would evolve into Sierra On-Line. Because of its use of graphics, GamePro named Mystery House the 51st most important game of all time in 2007.

Geoff Keighley is a Canadian video game journalist. His work spans online, print and TV outlets, and he has been writing about games since 1992.

Jade Raymond is a Canadian video game executive and a host of G4's program The Electric Playground.

The Electric Playground is a TV show focused on video games. It is written and directed by Victor Lucas and Glen Lougheed, produced by Greedy Productions (Lucas' production company). The show first aired in September 1997 and the 17th season was completed in December 2007; as of July 30, 2008, the show has been on the air for over 12 years. The show features previews of upcoming video games, video game industry news, and interviews with celebrity gamers and people in the video game industry; as well as segments that look at the latest toys, comics, and gadgets.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is a first-person action-adventure game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. It is the tenth game in the Metroid series, and the final entry in the Metroid Prime trilogy—excluding two spin-off titles. It was released in North America and Europe in 2007, and in Japan the following year. The Wii Remote and Nunchuk devices are featured in a new control scheme that took a year to develop and caused the game's release to be delayed several times.