At the end of October, Digital Eclipse, the team behind the wonderful documentary game, The Making of Karateka – and the gorgeous Atari 50 collection – announced it was being acquired by Atari. Just before that happened, we had a chat with Chris Kohler, Digital Eclipse’s editorial director, and Mike Mika, the company’s president, about the studio’s work keeping game history alive in dynamic, playable form.
Following acquisition, the studio will keep working on games like The Making of Karateka as part of its Gold Master Series. If you’re interested in hearing a little about the process of making these playable slices of history, I hope you enjoy our chat.
(Mike Mika arrived a little late so he pops up towards the end of the interview.)
Eurogamer: So I wanted to talk to you about the emergence of what feels like a slightly new documentary form. But before that, I just want to say that when I played The Making of Karateka, I was really moved by it. And I think part of it, with the recent game, is this wonderful story between the father and son that emerges. I think also it’s just the sheer impact of games being treated in such a delicate and thoughtful way. And I wondered, is that a common reaction to these things you’re making?
Chris Kohler: Obviously we’re gratified whenever we get that reaction, because that’s precisely what we’re going for. We’ve done so many, over the course of the history of Digital Eclipse – the sort of standard retro collections – and for all of them, we’ve always been trying to push the boundaries of what we can do. How can we get more of the history in there? Not just because we’re history nuts – we are – but because we really believe that to do a great service to these games would be to not simply take the game and say here, go play it, but to take the player on this journey.