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LGJ: Unlicensed games and the DMCA
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: Fans of retro games or even just videos about retro games are familiar with the "unlicensed" games that existed on bygone systems like NES and SNES. These titles include a number of "Bible games" and more risque offerings like Bubble Bath Babes (box art pictured above). What's of particular interest to me, though, is how unlicensed games were ever "allowed" in the first place, and how more recent legal requirements more or less eliminate the possibility of new unlicensed titles in the retail marketplace.We can trace unlicensed games back to the US game industry's so-called "crash" in the early 1980s. At the time, the console market was basically an open playing field. If you wanted to make a game for an Atari console, you just made it. This led to the widely publicized over-saturation of low quality titles, which killed consumer confidence in the home games market. Remember, back then, there was no Joystiq.com -- let alone the other copious resources used to research a game before purchasing. So, when Nintendo came to the US and almost single-handedly brought the video game industry back from the dead, the company decided to take certain quality control measures to prevent repeating Atari's mistakes.
Live the dream: own Bubble Bath Babes
We doubt that Nintendo will make amends with Panesian (who probably doesn't exist anymore) or any other unlicensed NES publishers, no matter how much we want them to. So, if you're extremely desperate for awful, awkwardly lewd NES games, you should probably go ahead and look into buying an original NES cartridge, because you'll be waiting for Virtual Console releases of this stuff until the eventual heat death of the universe.Well, chances are that nobody bidding on this copy of the extremely rare Bubble Bath Games is interested in playing it at all, and is after it as a collectible only. We say humbug to that: if you pay over $600 for one of the worst NES games ever made-- and somebody will pay a great deal more than that once this auction's over, we bet-- then you should play it until you get your money's worth. Which, again, may take the entire lifetime of the universe. Just because one of you may be crazy enough to go buy the thing, we'll warn you now: if the ESRB had existed back then, they probably would have rated this game AO. Don't buy this if you're under 18, is what we're saying.And speaking of ridiculously overpriced rare NES items, GameSniped also found this QuickShot Zapper scope for only $99. Act now-- supplies are limited![Via GameSniped]
