Digital Pictures was an American
video game developer founded in 1991 by Lode Coen, Mark Klein, Ken Melville, Anne Flaut-Reed, Kevin Welsh and Tom Zito.[1]
The company originated from an attempt to produce a game for the failed
VHS-based
NEMO game system. One of its first titles, Night Trap, was originally produced as a title for the NEMO, before being converted for use with
Sega's new
Sega CD. The mature-themed content of Night Trap made it the source of some controversy. Nevertheless, the title was a bestseller. Digital Pictures went on to create other
full motion video-based titles primarily for Sega hardware, and are regarded as a pioneer of the
interactive movie genre.[2] The company declined in the mid-1990s due to waning interest in full motion video games. Its final title, Maximum Surge, went unreleased and was later repurposed into a film called Game Over.
Full motion video games
The founders of Digital Pictures met in the late 1980s while working at a division of the toy manufacturer
Hasbro originally called Hasbro Interactive and later renamed Isix. The Isix team developed a video game system called
NEMO (a code name abbreviation for "never ever mention outside")[citation needed] that used VHS tapes rather than cartridges, which allowed games to offer live action and
interactivefull motion video. They also developed a software prototype called Scene Of The Crime, which led to the production of two full-length titles, Night Trap and Sewer Shark.
After Hasbro executives declined to bring the NEMO system to market, closing its Isix division, key members of the Isix team purchased the NEMO software assets from Hasbro and later, in 1991, founded Digital Pictures. Digital Pictures converted Night Trap and Sewer Shark from their video-tape-based format to the
Sega CD platform.
We're betting, ultimately, when there's an
interactive cable converter sitting atop everyone's TV set, that something that feels like Citizen Kane (or at least Leave It to Beaver) will have more legs than something that feels like Mario or Princess Toadstool.[3]
In 1994, when the company was on its height of its popularity, Digital Pictures signed a partnership with
Acclaim Entertainment whereas Acclaim would bought out a stake in the company and enabled Acclaim Distribution to handle its titles.[5]
Controversy
In the early 1990s, Night Trap was singled out by numerous interest groups and by U.S. senators
Joseph Lieberman and
Herbert Kohl as evidence that the video game industry was marketing games with graphic violence and other adult content to minors. Concern about Night Trap and several other games such as Mortal Kombat helped to bring about the creation of the
Entertainment Software Rating Board video game rating system.
Decline
By the late 1990s, consumer interest in full-motion video games, which accounted for the majority of the company's profits, was in decline. After the collapse of the company, its assets were acquired by Cyber Cinema Interactive. The new company intended to re-release the games for DVD but that never came about.[6] The only actual production for Cyber Cinema was the
direct to video film Game Over – also known as Maximum Surge Movie. It used footage from an unreleased video game called Maximum Surge as well as clips from other Digital Pictures games. Although the film boasted stars such as
Yasmine Bleeth and
Walter Koenig, they only appear in the segments that had been pulled from the FMV sequences of the game, which suffer from lower image quality than the original footage.[7]
Re-releases
Flash Film Works later acquired the rights to some of the games. They remastered and re-released Double Switch and Quarterback Attack for
iTunes and
Google Play in late 2016 before partnering with Screaming Villains and
Limited Run Games to release
PlayStation 4 remasters starting in 2018 with Double Switch and 2019 with Corpse Killer.[8] Screaming Villains separately re-released Night Trap and Ground Zero Texas (two of the games not owned by Flash Film Works) through Limited Run Games.
Games developed
List of games developed by Digital Pictures and all subsequent releases of the games either by them or successor companies.
Title
Cast
Date of release
Format
Reference
Citizen X
Sharee Gregory, Charley Hayward, Peter Kent, Rob Narita, Mark Withers