I am fascinated by timelines, history, chronological order and overviews. As I have been involved in the Dutch Games industry for about a decade now I decided it was time to create some sort of timeline. In comes Facebook. Some time ago I read about the NY Times using the new FB timeline functionality to create a history of NY Times. Love that idea! So with that in mind I thought about something similar for the Dutch Game industry.
We’re such a small country and we are lucky enough to live in a time to witness the growth of the game industry. However, it is in constant motion, people move, companies disappear, knowledge is lost. I love to have some sort of overview that shows the changes that happen.
Personally I have been involved in and attended many (historical) Dutch game industry events. I still got a load of pictures spanning from 2003 until now from game events in The Netherlands that cover academia, game business, culture etc. Ranging from DiGRA Level Up in 2003 where I was an intern, to Playful in 2004 (giving a talk, taking photos), to Indigo in 2010 (initiator) and Global Game Jam (director). Although the timeline is more suitable for creating milestone events, I hope to also add some of those photos, as I believe photos can tell a lot of stories about the events and the people that make up this industry.
I am currently still in the process of adding events and milestones to the timeline. But as with every industry, it’s in constant flux: many websites, studios etc. don’t exist anymore. I’m hoping to find traces of it though and add it to the timeline wherever I can, giving an overall picture of the changes, new initiatives, major events etc. I hope it will add to the sense of history and what kind of changes the industry goes through. While uploading to the timeline, I realize that the industry might already be growing too big to add everything to it. But lets see what happens. Have ideas or suggestions? Please let me know!
As you can see in the picture below, 2008 for example, was a big year for the Dutch Game Industry. But that is not all that happened. Go see for yourself:
Timeline: https://www.facebook.com/DutchGameIndustryHistory
PS: Would love to have a logo for this timeline. Any takers? 🙂 – The awesome Richard Boeser offered me to make one. Thank you!
PS2: The timeline is a work in progress. Suggestions are welcome.
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