TECHNOLOGY - May 11, 1995

Heavy-Metal CD-ROM: In another breakthrough for high culture in Orange County, Irvine-based Virgin Interactive Entertainment has announced an agreement with EMI Records to distribute a CD-ROM game by the heavy-metal rock band Queensryche.

Written by the band, the two-disc game includes nearly 100 minutes of digitized video images and almost 2,000 photos of the Seattle band, which critics have branded a thinking person’s metal band.

“We decided to do a CD-ROM because we wanted to be able to give our fans a vehicle to interact with us,” said Chris DeGarmo, the band’s guitarist and songwriter, in a news release.

Virgin will begin shipping the discs this summer. Under the terms of the agreement, Virgin will distribute the discs to U.S. software retailers. This week, Virgin also announced it would produce and distribute a game based on the popular 1982 film “Blade Runner,” which stars Harrison Ford.