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Weird things done with games/consoles for legal reasons

Started by peanutbutter, December 05, 2020, 09:04:49 PM

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peanutbutter

Apparently the reason the original Xbox couldn't play DVD videos without a remote was because that way they were able to push the licensing fee onto the remote instead of the main console.

Yabasic was included on the PS2's demo disc so it could be put into a different tax bracket.

The original Donkey Kong game's source code was legally disputed for decades so Nintendo rarely ported it to anything as a result.

lazarou

The impressively twisted mess that is the Wonder Boy/Monster World/Adventure Island series. It would be a tangle with even the mainline 'official' entries but the various sprite swaps and loose naming conventions turn it into a fucking headache waiting to happen.

We have:
the OG Wonder Boy
ported to NES as Adventure Island, a port with the main sprites changed for legal reasons, which goes on to become its own series with no direct connection to WB in future entries

Wonder Boy in Monster Land aka Super Wonder Boy: Monster World
- ported to PCE as Bikkuriman World with the sprites changed to tie into a collectable sticker craze in japan at the time
- ported to NES as Saiyuuki World with the sprites changed to tie into a Journey To The West theme, got a direct sequel with no relation to WB whatsoever which itself had its sprites changed for a US Release as Whomp 'Em

Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, the official proper 3rd Wonder Boy game, ported to PCE as Monster Lair with no reference to Wonder Boy
Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap the sequel to Wonder Boy in Monster Land, ported to PCE as Dragon's Curse again with the WB naming removed and also PCE-CD where they called it Adventure Island. It has no actual relation to the existing Adventure Island series.

There is no Wonder Boy IV.

Then we get to Wonder Boy V: Monster World III aka Wonder Boy in Monster World ported to PCE as The Dynastic Hero with a slight makeover, finally ending in Monster World IV which is both the official end to the series at the time and not actually a Wonder Boy game either as we've officially shifted to a new protagonist.

I've probably missed bits or screwed something up in the timeline there but that's the general gist of it.

lazarou

And on the related subject of weird things not done with games for legal reasons, the reason most games don't have playable minigames on their loading screens is that Namco had a patent on it for 20 years despite prior art like Invade-A-Load already existing well before they filed it. It only expired in 2015.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

The version of Carmageddon with green blood and zombies because the BBFC initially wouldn't certify the original version with blood and pedestrians.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The whole rigmarole with the boss names in Street Fighter 2: In Japan, the boxer is M. Bison, the bullfighter is Balrog and the final baddie is Vega. Apparently they couldn't get away with the Mike Bison/Tyson thing elsewhere so, instead of coming up with a new name for him, they swapped the names around - and to make matters more messy, they decided to swap all three names. This did at least mean that the Spanish one ended up with the Spanish name.

beanheadmcginty

The makers of the Blade Runner game released on the Speccy, C64 etc in 1985 were unable to licence the film, so instead licensed the Vangelis soundtrack and claimed the game was based on that.

stonkers

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on December 06, 2020, 02:04:25 PM
The whole rigmarole with the boss names in Street Fighter 2: In Japan, the boxer is M. Bison, the bullfighter is Balrog and the final baddie is Vega. Apparently they couldn't get away with the Mike Bison/Tyson thing elsewhere so, instead of coming up with a new name for him, they swapped the names around - and to make matters more messy, they decided to swap all three names. This did at least mean that the Spanish one ended up with the Spanish name.

Also Boxer AKA M(ike) Bison was clearly meant to be Mike from Street Fighter 1 but Capcom now says they were separate characters all along.

QDRPHNC


Quote from: lazarou on December 06, 2020, 12:15:34 PM
The impressively twisted mess that is the Wonder Boy/Monster World/Adventure Island series. It would be a tangle with even the mainline 'official' entries but the various sprite swaps and loose naming conventions turn it into a fucking headache waiting to happen.

We have:
the OG Wonder Boy
ported to NES as Adventure Island, a port with the main sprites changed for legal reasons, which goes on to become its own series with no direct connection to WB in future entries

Wonder Boy in Monster Land aka Super Wonder Boy: Monster World
- ported to PCE as Bikkuriman World with the sprites changed to tie into a collectable sticker craze in japan at the time
- ported to NES as Saiyuuki World with the sprites changed to tie into a Journey To The West theme, got a direct sequel with no relation to WB whatsoever which itself had its sprites changed for a US Release as Whomp 'Em

Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, the official proper 3rd Wonder Boy game, ported to PCE as Monster Lair with no reference to Wonder Boy
Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap the sequel to Wonder Boy in Monster Land, ported to PCE as Dragon's Curse again with the WB naming removed and also PCE-CD where they called it Adventure Island. It has no actual relation to the existing Adventure Island series.

There is no Wonder Boy IV.

Then we get to Wonder Boy V: Monster World III aka Wonder Boy in Monster World ported to PCE as The Dynastic Hero with a slight makeover, finally ending in Monster World IV which is both the official end to the series at the time and not actually a Wonder Boy game either as we've officially shifted to a new protagonist.

I've probably missed bits or screwed something up in the timeline there but that's the general gist of it.

The only bit you've missed is 2018's Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom which, to keep the confusion train running, licences the Wonder Boy and Monster World trademarks from Sega, and is a direct sequel to Monster World IV, but uses neither name.

MojoJojo

The ZX Spectrum 128 was mostly developed because Spain introduced a tax on computers with 64kb or less of RAM.

buzby

Quote from: peanutbutter on December 05, 2020, 09:04:49 PM
The original Donkey Kong game's source code was legally disputed for decades so Nintendo rarely ported it to anything as a result.
Nintendo still don't own it. The company who developed it for them, the broadcast equipment company Ikegami, does as a result of a couple of lawsuits in 1990 and 1991 which were brought after Nintendo paid other companies to reverse engineer the code and hardware to avoid paying royalties to Ikegami. The version Nintendo base their ports on now is the NES conversion.
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,66720.msg3468839.html#msg3468839
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,66720.msg3468949.html#msg3468949

lazarou

Quote from: MojoJojo on December 07, 2020, 10:52:05 AM
The ZX Spectrum 128 was mostly developed because Spain introduced a tax on computers with 64kb or less of RAM.

Also responsible for the short-lived Amstrad CPC 472, a "72k" CPC 464 for the Spanish market with an additional 8kb of memory inside. The extra memory was not even electrically connected to the machine as they figured as long as it was physically present it still counted.

NoSleep

Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age features minor characters from the films that are seen but never named (although the production team had names for each of them). For legal reasons they couldn't draw anything directly from the books, only stuff that actually appeared in the films. The storyline run parallel to the central story of the films, often going through the same areas and being on the same battlefields, and sometimes you even meet up with the central characters.

idunnosomename

Starwing and Lylat Wars. The copyright threat was so mild but they werent willing to take chances with stuff like that back then.

Quote from: QDRPHNC on December 06, 2020, 05:37:31 PM
I think the switched names are better.
i think thats why they did it. It was a three birds with one stone solution. M. Bison does sound more mysterious and intimidating for a final boss than Vega. Though so would Balrog.

stonkers

Quote from: buzby on December 07, 2020, 12:09:06 PM
Nintendo still don't own it. The company who developed it for them, the broadcast equipment company Ikegami, does as a result of a couple of lawsuits in 1990 and 1991 which were brought after Nintendo paid other companies to reverse engineer the code and hardware to avoid paying royalties to Ikegami. The version Nintendo base their ports on now is the NES conversion.
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,66720.msg3468839.html#msg3468839
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,66720.msg3468949.html#msg3468949

Related - Nintendo got sued by Universal and won because it turned out the latter didn't really own the rights to King Kong.

Glebe

I remember The Great Giana Sisters being taken off the market as a kid, somebody on here confirmed that it was only temporarily withdrawn... more info (although note the 'failed 'verification'):

QuoteAlleged lawsuit

According to several urban legends, Nintendo initiated a copyright infringement lawsuit against Time Warp Productions and Rainbow Arts because of similarities to its new game Super Mario Bros., but there has never been such a lawsuit. Rather, Nintendo directly influenced The Great Giana Sisters being withdrawn from sale, as the company had already done with other games.[5][failed verification – see discussion]

Several factors influenced the withdrawal of the game, including conspicuous similarities: the general gameplay and the first level of The Great Giana Sisters are nearly identical in layout to the first stage found in Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. The immediate similarity to Super Mario Bros. ensured that The Great Giana Sisters was quickly noticed by both the public and the video game industry itself. Nintendo urged the makers of The Great Giana Sisters to withdraw the game from sale, arguing that it was obvious copyright infringement. Time Warp Productions and Rainbow Arts immediately stopped production and, at the same time, the game began vanishing from stores.[5][failed verification – see discussion][6][7] The rarity of the game has led to copies of it becoming collector's items.[8][9]

Sonny_Jim

Loading screen games were patented by Namco for their PS1 Ridge Racer, which meant they disappeared for a while.  The patent has run out by now:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/loading-screen-game-patent-finally-expires

In Goldeneye for the N64, Bond's trusty black handgun is called a "PP7", rather than a "Walter PPK", which is what he uses in all the films. They presumably didn't get legal permission to name the real gun.

The original version of Revenge of the Shinobi for the Mega Drive rather cheekily featured Spider-Man, Batman and Godzilla as bosses. By the time it came to the UK, the sprites for Batman and Godzilla had been replaced. Spider-Man remained, but only because they came to some agreement with Marvel, although I think in later versions he's just a generic purple figure.

Mister Six

Quote from: thecuriousorange on December 08, 2020, 03:11:21 AM
In Goldeneye for the N64, Bond's trusty black handgun is called a "PP7", rather than a "Walter PPK", which is what he uses in all the films. They presumably didn't get legal permission to name the real gun.

That happens quite a lot in games. The Fallout games had a lot of generic/alternate names for renders of real guns like the Desert Eagle.

druss

Sonic 3 used music composed by Michael Jackson but wasn't credited to him.

Ferris

Quote from: thecuriousorange on December 08, 2020, 03:11:21 AM
In Goldeneye for the N64, Bond's trusty black handgun is called a "PP7", rather than a "Walter PPK", which is what he uses in all the films. They presumably didn't get legal permission to name the real gun.

The original version of Revenge of the Shinobi for the Mega Drive rather cheekily featured Spider-Man, Batman and Godzilla as bosses. By the time it came to the UK, the sprites for Batman and Godzilla had been replaced. Spider-Man remained, but only because they came to some agreement with Marvel, although I think in later versions he's just a generic purple figure.

It's the case for all the weapons in goldeneye I think? It also happens in FerrisFaveTM TimeSplitters 2 and probably a few others.

druss


El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: thecuriousorange on December 08, 2020, 03:11:21 AM
In Goldeneye for the N64, Bond's trusty black handgun is called a "PP7", rather than a "Walter PPK", which is what he uses in all the films. They presumably didn't get legal permission to name the real gun.


Although properly named in The Living Daylights



I think 80s games generally got away with a lot more legally dubious stuff




Rich Uncle Skeleton

all i want is that xbox port of Goldeneye allegedly finished and just sitting in a drawer so to speak given the inevitable Bond rights issues. is N64 emulation for PC still a pain in the arse? was always told not to bother for some reason.

MojoJojo

When Gameboy (and I believe Gameboy Advance) cartridges are booted, the start up Nintendo image is loaded and displayed from the cartridge. The GB rom then checks the image matches the one stored inside the GB rom.

This is the main copyright protection/license enforcement on the Gameboy. Because it is necessary to copy that image for any GB cart to work, anyone selling GB cartridges without Nintendo's permission can easily be sued for copyright and trademark infringement of that image, a relatively simple and cheap legal mechanism rather than lockout chips and proving infringement when they are bypassed.

Argonaut games worked out that the GB read the image from the cartridge twice - once to display and once to check it, and that with a simple capacitor and resistor they could change what was read from the cartridge and display their own logo when the gameboy booted, but have the cartridge present the correct Nintendo logo when it was checking it. Showing this trick off to Nintendo executives at a trade show is how they first got themselves noticed by Nintendo, a relationship that would eventually lead to them developing the SuperFX chip.

MojoJojo

Part of the reason for the awful D-pad on the Xbox and Xbox 360 was that Nintendo had a patent on the simple cross shaped D-pad from it's Game and Watch toys. It expired in 2005.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Rich Uncle Skeleton on December 08, 2020, 03:24:29 PM
all i want is that xbox port of Goldeneye allegedly finished and just sitting in a drawer so to speak given the inevitable Bond rights issues. is N64 emulation for PC still a pain in the arse? was always told not to bother for some reason.
I think it's vastly improved now - those sub-$100 handhelds that are being discussed in another thread can emulate most N64 games perfectly well, so any reasonably powered PC would breeze through em.

magval

Quote from: druss on December 08, 2020, 01:55:02 PM
Sonic 3 used music composed by Michael Jackson but wasn't credited to him.

Jackson didn't want his name attached to it because he thought the Mega Drive made his contributions sound rubbish, and the stuff Brad Buxer (his keyboardist) contributed is still present and can be traced to pre-existing music. There a couple of Jackson-esque elements (the breakdown from Jam and chords from Stranger in Moscow), but whatever else was in there we may never hear.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: Rich Uncle Skeleton on December 08, 2020, 03:24:29 PM
all i want is that xbox port of Goldeneye allegedly finished and just sitting in a drawer so to speak given the inevitable Bond rights issues. is N64 emulation for PC still a pain in the arse? was always told not to bother for some reason.

Apart from trying to configure usable control schemes for each game, due to that abomination of a control-pad, N64 emulation is mostly fine now. However, Goldeneye plays like an absolute piece of shit in this day and age.

popcorn

#29
<buzby>

Quote from: magval on December 08, 2020, 04:48:03 PM
Jackson didn't want his name attached to it because he thought the Mega Drive made his contributions sound rubbish

Maybe, maybe not.

There are conflicting accounts of why Jackson was scrubbed from the credits. His dissatisfaction with the Mega Drive sounds is one explanation (given by Jackson's keyboardist Brad Buxer). According to Sega Technical Institute director Roger Hector, he was dropped when the first child abuse scandals came up.

Sega management representatives later denied Jackson's team was ever involved, but that's contradicted by an abundance of evidence, including an interview with Sonic creator Naoto Oshima himself in which he merrily recalls listening to Jackson's demo tape.

It seems lots of the music Jackson's team contributed ended up in the game, but Buxer mentions working on the Sonic soundtrack in this recent interview and says Jackson didn't contribute much himself. (He then moves to talking about working on Stranger in Moscow, which we know from other Buxer interviews was first used as the Sonic 3 credits music.)

</buzby>

For anyone who doesn't know this story, it's one of the most fascinating mysteries in games and I recommend an evening investigating on Wikipedia and Youtube. Through work I actually met a Sega employee in Tokyo a couple of years ago and he brought up the fact that Sonic 3 was left off the recent Mega Drive miniconsole due to some kind of rights dispute with Sony. He had never heard of the MJ story but I checked and Sony was MJ's label at the time. I've no idea if they'd have a stake in any of the music Jackson's team created for the game, maybe it was just a coincidence or just confused company gossip, but it was interesting.