Sega Filed a LAWSUIT After Seeing This…
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2024
- Most people associate unlicensed games with the NES. This is understandable, because the console had a ton of them. But there was another console that had to deal with these types of games: The Sega Genesis.
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:47 Birth of Accolade
1:46 Commodore 64
2:58 Genesis Games
6:16 Why Accolade Went the Unlicensed Route
7:09 Trademark Security System (TMSS)
8:12 Sega v Accolade
9:05 Settlement
Special thanks to the following users from pexels.com for the stock footage:
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Special thanks to streambeats.com for the music used in this video.
#sega #accolade #retrogaming - Hry
To be fair, if someone tried to publish Bubsy on my game console, I’d take legal action too.
The first two games were actually decent. The 3rd game (the Jaguar one) is when it got really bad, and Bubsy 3D was so bad that it killed off the entire series for 2 whole decades.
This comment is HILARIOUS 😂😂😂
lol
@@JMFSpikebubsy was never good.
@@rainbowspongebob he never said good he said they were decent. maybe put glasses on and learn to read
A funny twist to the SEGA and Accolade saga is that Accolade had already been in a turf war with SEGA in suing Distinctive Software, Inc. (DSI) over their port of OutRun to MS-DOS, as DSI had used code they'd previously written for Test Drive and Test Drive II. (Side note: Accolade lost the case but dropped DSI from developing further Test Drive games - only years later however, DSI were acquired by EA, changed their name to Pioneer Productions and developed Test Drive rival The Need for Speed.)
Accolade really took a lot of Ls it seems
@@alanbareiro6806more like Accolllllllllllllllllllllllllade
05:34 Fun fact: Accolade ported Super Bubsy to Windows around 1995 with enhanced graphics, new sound effects and midi music. The controls are translated well to keyboard, it's fun to play. The game was bundled with the actual Bubsy TV show, the player can unlock more and more of it via collecting blue television icons through the gameplay ‒ or just open the CD in Windows Explorer and play the video files from there instead.
I haven't played this one. It's cool that it gave us the TV show pilot
@@pojr Yup, the video was in 320×240 in four avi files in the Movies directory on the CD.
unlicensed Genesis games don't get nearly as much attention as their NES counterparts, great video covering them Pojr!
Thank you so much!
some of them dont need the exposure. any russian bootlegs on the genesis are best left not seen.
@@supersmashbro596 this is why Felix The Cat is somewhat hated now imo
@@Travis-ea4205 i dont hate felix the cat. he didnt do anything bad by himself.
it was the bootlegs.
Weird, I always thought the Genesis was THE place where most bootlegs are made.
I remember people at the different video stores around town telling me I was going to need an adapter or something to play the Accolade games I was trying to rent which confused me at the time because the games worked just fine for me. Learned later since my Genesis was from 1991, it lacked the TMSS, and it would play anything from any region licensed or not.
so cool, didnt know freakin bubsy was illegal
Not illegal.
Accolade did nothing wrong. They did a clean room reverse engineer of the Genesis. To get their games to work they had to trip the Sega copyright screen but the court ruled it fair use. Thus Accoldae won in court and set the precedent that is still used today for clean room reverse engineering.
Unlicensed does not mean illegal
@@LUCKO2022 Bubsy was one of those things that weren't illegal to make, but probably should have been.
>"They felt mistreated at Atari and left to create Activision"
>Activision today
😭😭😭
They also abandoned ship when the company wasn't the money-printing machine they wanted it to be, so let's not pretend that the duo were gaming-messiahs. They were self-enrichers first, foremost and at best, crooks at the worst. Games were just the vehicle that they used because they got in on the ground-floor.
Kotick bought a hollowed out corpse of a company for cents on the dollar not long after.
You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
Personally, I think there should be a law against console manufacturers from locking out publishers who don't pay for a license. It's the user's hardware once they've bought it and it should be their choice as to what to play. The really sad thing is, there are probably tens of thousands of sycophants out there to carry water for the console manufacturers behalf on this issue.
Based
Once I saw Test Drive come up, a little bit of irony popped into my head. Accolade was found by two former Atari employees. Test Drive is currently an Atari IP after Accolade got liquidated.
Different atari
Well it came full circle lol.
Activision became what they hated 😢
Didn't Sega sue Hudson back in the 80s because they released a version of Wonder Boy on the NES without their consent
That's Adventure Island.
@@PhilipMarcYT yeah ik
That sounds familiar
Wonderboy? What is the secret of his power?
@@RobotacularRoBob wonderfully taking away your quarters
"i feel like im playing QBERT" literal the exact moment i said the same thing. its QBERT soccer!
Is that Sony game
Indeed lol.
solstice for NES also has QBERT controls and i don't like it
Correction: Bubsy is a game where you just go to the right and w̶i̶n̶ lose.
I thought part of the point of the Sega was to be more open than the heavily censored Nintendo! IMHO, the Genesis could have been awesome as a real computer.
The issue with Sega is that they aren't on the same term with each other, while the western side of Sega are more into the cool and gritty (like Sonic, Eternal Champion, and Mortal Kombat), the eastern side of Sega are more into the weird and cutesy (like NiGHTS, Ulala, Virtua Fighter, and Segata Sanshiro).
apparently there was actually a mega drive PC back then
*Nothing can stop Bubsy. That bobcat will always keep coming back*
Unfortunately, you're right.
Not counting ports this Bobcat still has 3 lives left.
Great video, I didn't know that Acolade were made up of former Activision employees. Speaking of Activision, they are a living example of, "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
This was back when we actually had some semblance of law in this country.
Now there's so many disgusting legal loopholes that ONLY help larger companies, rather than the people.
Congrats on the 20k! I subscribed right away after getting a video in suggested videos a few weeks ago. You have a great format that gets right to the point and covers great topics. To 20k more, 200k more, 2M more, and beyond!
Thank you so much! I appreciate that!
Nice one, Pojr. Looking forward to Friday's 20K special!
Thank you!
I remembered this being a topic in my college Philosophy & Computer class.
It's a nice topic to cover, even in school haha.
@@pojr I was the only student in class who was familiar w/the story.
I've never seen Turrican on the Megadrive. Looks a lot like the Atari ST version.. An easy port perhaps?
Yeah seems like they did a simple port without changing much, which is why there's no parallax scrolling.
If Accolade had used a reverse engineering method of copying the code for the lockout instead of copying it verbatim they probably would have been alright. When Compaq was trying to make an IBM PC compatible without infringing on IBM's actual code, the way they did it was they had two programming teams: One team would go through the IBM code and figure out what the code does, where it stores its variables and where the code execution start point is etc. Then they would give this generic information to team two without giving them the actual code. Team two would create all new code that does everything the original code does so that it could run the same software, operating system etc. This is how they avoided (mostly) copyright infringement with IBM.
My understanding is the console was looking for a specific code signature. So it's literally impossible to be compatible without copying the 25 bytes of code.
For the golf game, the rendering method looks like what early IBM PC golf games did, so maybe just a lazy port of a computer version? You can do individual pixel pushing on the Genesis, but the hardware isn't really designed for it.
I'm kinda in a mixed mindset with the situation.
Because on the one hand, DRM and unlicensed protections have done just as much damage as quality control.
On the other hand, I know first-hand how shitty it is to have someone very obviously steal your code. Not even generic code, it was specific to our usecase and even kept the variable names with our internal prefixes.
Courts back then, and even now in some cases, just don't have a good grasp on how software and digital media works.
The last time any copyright or patent laws were created to address such issues was in 2000 with the ever-broken DMCA Act.
The affected code was something like 25 bytes in the game header. I don't know if it contained any actual executable code but if it did it was very non-substantive.
This was another really fun and informative video. Thanks! As a Sega fanatic in the 90's, the Genesis was where it was at. I'd love to see your coverage on a lesser known game called Fatal Rewind. It was brutally HARD.
I wonder if EA and Accolade had any potential conversations during that time 🤔
I've always thought Combat Cars would be a perfect game for using Mode 7's full rotation of the course when the car turns. I think that would totally work great there [Edit: Still in top-down view]. Just sharing that random thought. :)
Even with mode 7 the snes still aged like milk, it's a very pixelated looking mode.
@@Sega_MegaGen A mode that the Genesis can't match. Unfortunately, the best it can do is about double size pixels, at about half the frame rate, and cropped to about half the screen size from what I've seen. Still, each system has its own strengths. The Genesis normally has a higher standard horizontal resolution for example. So that's good.
Whenever I think of racing games, Road Rash always comes to mind for me. Some truly great games.
@@evdestroy5304 Definitely an interesting racing game on Genesis there. It runs at 10-12 fps, so not ideal to play today, but a very original concept and fun racing title for the time for sure.
With me, whenever I think of thee quintessential 16-bit-era racing games, it's always F-Zero and Super Mario Kart that immediately spring to mind and stand out most, one for just being a mind blowing technical showcase SNES launch title and 16-bit racing game at the time, and the other for literally creating the entire kart racing genre. Two amazingly good SNES Mode 7 60fps racing games that still hold up exceptionally well even today imo.
Yeah, great times with lots of truly great games for everyone to enjoy on these two classic consoles (and the PC Engine and Neo Geo too, as well as the Game Boy and other handhelds also).
They could have used Mode 7 for 3D-like graphics on the stages themselves. Like a Mario Kart style game.
Bubsy wasn't great gameplay-wise, but the music was a banger as far as I'm concerned.
Most of the games that came out for the Atari 2600 were unlicensed. It's what caused the crash.
You're absolutely right. Atari didn't have a licensing system for the 2600.
Nowadays, a lot of games on digital shops like Steam, PSN, Xbox Marketplace, Google Pay Store, Microsoft Store, and eShop are unlicensed. It's because of that that asset flip games got released in the mix.
@@VOAN You'd think they'd at least bother to build a QA system into the mix.
9:23 Thank you for reminding me of the game 'Zero Tolerance'. A first person shooter were you can crouch and jump, with different characters to choose from. For the Mega Drive? Just amazing!
Good one Pojr! NOT a topic I've seen covered anywhere else before!
8:22 that makes it look like Accolade copied code from a 1994 game to release their own game in 1990. 🙃
i have an n64 game/cartridge that wasn’t released back then. when i play the cartridge it says its licensed by Nintendo but it was never released to the public
What game is it?
I don't see how it's trademark infringement if the console decides to claim my game is produced by Sega. I never said it was. I just had four bytes in a certain part of the code that could be interpreted as "SEGA". If they programmed it so that if it sees my game, it will say "I confess to planning to kill the President", that means I confessed?
If they made it look at what gets printed to the screen, and only run if you write code specifically to print that, then I think that would make more sense. Though if I were the judge, and the game immediately clarified that it wasn't related to SEGA and they only wrote that to get it to run, I'd allow it. They're not trying to trick people into thinking Sega made it, which is what trademark is for.
It's my understanding that Sega left a back door in their protection system, either intentionally or unintentionally, that allowed an unlicensed game to operate without the SEGA string and without triggering the licensing message. The argument was that Accolaide could have done the second method to run their unlicensed games without triggering the message.
Honestly, the move should have gotten Sega slammed, this legal cornering is unfair for those who want to develop software without wanting to make false claims.
@@3rdalbum It would make sense, if it were easily known. Sega should have received an objection to that claim considering that if Accolade *could* have done this instead, then it should have been publicly provided rather than hoping you can find that alternative backdoor than just adding 4 characters to a file.
@@JamesTDG Probably why Sega ultimately lost.
Fabulous video! Those crazy Accolade scamps, with their blatant thievery and such... clearly, they've been up to their usual tricks, because the little tykes have gone and stolen my heart.
0:33 YOU ALSO USE SHOTCUT??
I sure do lol.
Excellent video! I am extremely interested in Accolade - one of the best in the 80s for computers. Access software would be another.
The SEGA/Accolade case is actually getting some mentions lately as a relevant reverse engineering case for AI litigation-is that how you found out about it?
7:16 you telling me accolade had a decompiled source code for earthworm jim all along?? that's nuts
omg BUBSY I FREAKING LOVE BUBSY
Me too!
After this settlement, did anyone try to challenge Nintendo regarding their similar lockout method on the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance systems?
I think by the time this case was settled, Nintendo was already being forced to loosen their rules a bit due to antitrust concerns, but not in that area.
I don't think the Game Boy had any lockout mechanic. Of all Nintendo's hardware the Game Boy line is the only legacy brand Nintendo didn't region lock so you could play any games of any kind on there even unlicensed ones. Other than the Game Boy Micro, I don't think there was ever a Game Boy systems that lockout unlicense games or regional games.
@@VOAN Game Boy series required the ROM to embed the Nintendo logo so unlicensed games would have to infringe the Nintendo trademark.
I believe the Sega lockout is a similar data comparison.
I've been subscribing since 3 or 4,000 subs. And I still live for that little grin every episode!
I appreciate you being here! You've been here for a while too.
@@pojr Aw dude, thanks! You've got a great channel and you come across as really likeable. Best of luck making a career out of it.
@@pojr Senpai noticed me!
I wonder what music POJR used for his outro.
It's from Pac-Man Arrangement, the first stage.
@@pojr Ok thanks!
Star Control and Hardball III were some of my all-time favorites.
I nearly forgot they got the license to use coach Mike Ditka da Bears
Honestly, it is absurd that SEGA was allowed to get away with that move with the rev3 consoles, forcing homebrewers into a corner by making it so games get slammed with automatically claiming it is officially licensed is extremely unfair
I love bubsy! currently I had more fun with the first bubsy than with the second, because even if the controls were rigid to turn backwards at least it had the right momentum and with the glide button you can pull bubsy backwards without any problem, and in any case bubsy is not never been criticized for his music in his series because they were catchy, even some admitted that some of the lyrics of bubsy's 3D abomination were good! bubsy 2 even though it had a great advantage over the first one thanks to the fact that it could be hit 3 times and the choice of weapons and objects which are very functional but the controls, even if not rigid, move schizophrenically, a bit like the first one zool for genesis, but I liked that one too!
Well! others will be able to criticize its games as much as they want but bubsy 1 will always remain the best game and a masterpiece for snes and genesis for those who had a childhood with it, I never had a childhood with bubsy but the potential is perfectly visible and the beauty that exists in this cute wild bobcat!
0:00: "Most people associate unlicensed games with the NES. This is understandable, because the console had a ton of them."
2:08: "After all, think about the way Nintendo treated their licensees."
Hmmm, I wonder if those two things were related in some way....
The second part about Nintendo treating their licensees aren't really that common anymore, it's just that back then when third party sign up to make games for the NES they got lock into a contract with they could only make 4 games per year and they can't make games for any of Nintendo's platform. Nintendo basically put every third party under a non-compete clause so they own monopoly over the 8-Bit generation. Fortunately this was thrown own after the 8-Bit era and third party could release games to any platform they like.
@@VOAN Yes, that was my point. The SNES barely had unlicensed games, because the licensing terms were not as draconian as with the NES.
Me looking at Test Drive for the C64 as a kid: OMG this is so realistic it's like you're in a real car! (compared to prior games like Pitstop and stuff)
I had the the Bubsy games and thought the carts were odd😅
Doesn't the "Combat Cars" hud look similar to the "Sonic the Hedgehog" hud?
Honestly, the sonic HUD was really simplistic, so any really simple HUD is just gonna look stolen from sonic
Video content aside, I’m glad you’ve decided to get rid of the recaps. At the end of these, it felt a little unnecessary at times, and I personally have the feeling that you would end up using them for a short form material, which honestly fits better than a recap of a relatively easy today just a story. Though I fully understand that I believe you’re targeting the general audience not just hard-core, so it makes it a little more sense to Be as descriptive as you are
Yeah I've been indifferent on whether I should include them or not. I write my scripts like an essay, and like all essays in school, there's a conclusion, but it did seem like a waste.
Glad you're getting the views lately dude....well deserved
5:11 : One thing I do with the controller when I have a game like that, I tilt it so that the + controller becomes an x controller. Giving me a better understanding of what I'm doing.
Same.
Bubsy II was one of my favorite games!
How interesting that Sega chose to restrict Accolades publishing to their platform. I wasn't aware this was something Sega did.
What’s the name of the song that you used at the end?
It's from Pac-Man arrangement, stage 1.
Cool story. I enjoyed a few Accolade titles on my PC long ago.
thanks i actually never knew this... accolade was my goto gaming for the PC in the late 80s early 90s. I never had a genesis or an Amiga... and i'm probably older than your dad... lol
I'm a little confused? I always assumed that Bubsy 1 came out after Sega and Accolade sorted their differences out and Accolade became a licensee in 1993.
I own the PAL version of Bubsy and it's got the Mega Drive logo on it, 16-bit cartridge written across the bottom black area of the front cover with the SEGA logo, plus 4 pics on the back and down below on the back cover side it clearly says
''Bubsy is a registered trademark of Accolade Inc. Licensed by Sega Enterprises Ltd. for play on the Sega ''Genesis'' system. Sega and Genesis are registered trademarks of Sega Enterprises Ltd. 1993 Accolade Inc. All rights reserved''.
Not sure why the name ''Genesis is'' used instead of the PAL name ''Mega Drive'' on the back and if I recall the NTSC Genesis version of the game is the one that came in a light yellow box with a full colour manual and no mention of Sega anywhere on the box. There still might be some truth to your video Pojr as when booting up Bubsy it boots straight to the Accolade logo, no Sega logo is seen.
Great video none the less and I look forward to more awesome content.
15 million, lot of money man
Hopefully they were about to negotiate a better license deal
Combat Cars? Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more..
Now Bubsy is owned by Atari
Combat Cars is one of my top 3 Sega Genesis games
Great video, thanks !
Thank you!
5:05 There are similar weird controls on actually a Nintendo made game on the SNES called superplay action football. I don't know why I gave that game a chance. It's a really bad game. But yeah up makes you move diagonally upright and down makes you move diagonally down left and then I think it was left makes you move straight up and right makes you move straight right I think. I mean at least if I'm remembering correctly right does what it is supposed to do but everything else is just so weird.
Bubsy is bad because Jontron says it, the real bad one is 3D, Idk about the Jaguar one.
I actually don't hate either game, but there's definitely noticeable flaws. I think 2 made a lot of improvements, but I prefer 1 because of the simplicity.
Soo bubsy is unlicensed?0_0
I didn't know too
Sega say : we already have Greendog.
does earlier accelade games work with later genesis modles??
Could you next time talk about the N64 port of Resident Evil 2/Biohazard 2
never knew about this
this is intriguing, should it all be true~
thank you~
"...but there was another console..." OOOH! I KNOW! I KNOW! It's the Atari 2600 isn't it? Yay!
I guess you could say all 2600 games are unlicensed since Atari didn't have a licensing system lol.
@@pojr The court case Atari vs Activision set the precedent for third-party games publishing. Until that case nobody was really sure. Activision were probably the first third-party publisher on a console. Yeah Atari's idea was they'd publish everything, they didn't think anyone else would be able to program the tricky little box, Activision was a few ex-Atari staff who had the knack. And went on to publish much _better_ games than a lot of Atari titles. Pitfall 2 is great in that there's a custom chip in there designed to do nothing but play Pitfall 2! It generates multi-channel music and streams graphics to the console, so the console doesn't have to do nearly as much calculating, allowing for such a sophisticated game.
Do the Sega owes atari a game after losing 1996 lawsuit...atari should claim virtua fighter vs fight4 life
at first I thought it said Bussy
You can't shoot above you or digaonaly and a lot of the enemies come from above. Looks like some has played Mega Man before.
I mean I would do the same if BUBSY was on my system like that
Moral of the story: Big corporations are evil and you should support indie games and games made by smaller studios if possible!!
I enjoyed this thank you
Don't forget the EA unlicensed games too
Sick Video Mate
Thank you!
This video smells like a Tengen NES cartridge.
Having beaten Bubsy on SNES as a kid, I played Bubsy 2 on Sega Channel and it was kinda garbage compared to the original, but I don't know if any of that was due to the hardware.
If sounding like Chills was your goal, then congrats.
Didn't Sega commission Tegen to port Shinobi, Fantasy Zone, and a few other games to the NES on unlicensed cartridges here in the states? Talk about being a hipocrit.
It was actually a very popular game
yeah, reception was positive back then
to be fair, it marketed towards kids, if they eat up stuff such as sonic, they'll probaly go for bubsy too
Ea did the same.
I feel like im playing qbert lmao
lol yup
Hi
Asking if the Sega Genesis was that under powered.... when the answer is obviously 'yes'
You're not wrong lol. I wonder how this game would have turned out under a different company though.
"Underpowered" compared to what? It was the most powerful console upon release.
In the graphics department?, yes (it only allowed 64 colors), but not anything else.
@@zabustifu idk, the neo geo?
@@ssg-eggunner the Neo Geo was released *after* the Mega Drive, not before.
Make a video about why the snes is overrated, no one has and it should be you.
1M views.
The majority of the people that are blindly hating on Bubsy in the comments probably haven’t even played it
Iiiiiiiits POJR!!!
You talk like that burger king foot lettuce guy
If English is not your first language, FFS Ask Google how to pronounce something.
It's not "Echolade"
*Google: Pronounce Accolade*
and i thought sega was cool
p
Nosegay
Imagine leaving Activision to found the company that made Bubsy.
The game was awful anyway
4 minutes