Tsunami Media, Inc.

Overview

Tsunami Media, Inc. was founded by Edmond Heinbockel in the summer of 1991. The company was based in Oakhurst, California, adjacent to Yosemite National Park, a place well-known in gaming history. The company location wasn't a coincidence, as Heinbockel had been CFO of Sierra On-Line.

After making various adventure and action games, Tsunami embarked on a controversial and risky strategy: to create original, interactive full motion video titles and broaden the demographic through the establishment of a new form of entertainment.
In 1994 the company started to release so-called "Intelligent Motion Pictures" (IMP's) with as first title Flash Traffic: City of Angels, described by U.S. Headlines as "the first interactive film on CD." It was followed in 1995 by Silent Steel that was awarded a Murphy Award by PC Entertainment Magazine for "Best Use of Live-Action Footage" in a CD-ROM game. Silent Steel featured 150 minutes of full-screen, full-motion video and became the first interactive entertainment DVD-ROM application on the planet when a demo version was created on September 15, 1996 (it was completed on October 31).

Its success resulted the next year in Heinbockel's new company Visual Purple, LLC, a company that specializes in advanced training/learning simulations in Virtual Worlds. In 1999 Heinbockel sold Tsunami Media, Inc. to Tsunami Media Corporation (TMC), incorporated in the same year in Delaware with the purpose to provide its consumers with full motion, television quality interactive video games, that while being played allowed TMC the opportunity to download video advertisements.

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