Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In our (unprecedented) second episode of this month, we continue our look back at early 90s tech fads that influenced the conversation over video games. This is part of our multi-part series on how video games got age ratings in the United States. 

This time around, we look at the full-motion video (FMV) game, its origins in LaserDisc, its relationship to multimedia "convergence" (where corporations mashed together telecommunications, film, gaming, and anything else they thought would make a bunch of money), and how FMV tried to push games to a mature audience (to the horror of some). 

Topics discussed include: The rise and fall of LaserDisc games, the surprisingly long history of on-demand gaming services, and whether or not virtual reality and FMV games really failed.

For more on the RDI Halcyon, which we only briefly mentioned, check out this amazing deep dive into the system by hbomberguy, titled "Halcyon Dreams: The Legacy of Dragon's Lair": https://youtu.be/CnPOQr1pxY8.   

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.