Unlicensed games generally refer to games that are not licensed for development by the original console manufacturer.
History[]
This kind of practice started back in 1977, when the only video game developers at the time were working for the original console manufacturer. Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead met with Atari CEO Ray Kassar to demand that the company treat developers as record labels treated musicians, with royalties and their names on game boxes.[1] They would later start up Activision where they began making their own games and cartridges for the Atari 2600 and due to the lack of any kind of lockout for the Atari 2600, it was easy for anyone to make games. Atari had trouble keeping up with all these third-party companies and due to the lack of quality control, the market became over-saturated with 3rd-party titles and it ultimately led to the North American video game crash of 1983. Mattel's Intellivision II and the Colecovision did have ways of locking out games, but these were done through the console only and were really easy to work around.
Around this time, Nintendo's Famicom was released in Japan. It did have a license policy for 3rd-party publishers but there was no lockout technology in place, which combined with the Famicom's use of a CPU based on the at-the-time common 6502 architecture and simplistic graphics and audio hardware, theoretically made it easy to produce unlicensed games for the Famicom. However, the license policy was not strict enough to encourage Japanese developers to create unlicensed Famicom games, meaning that unlicensed Famicom games developed in Japan were very rare. One of the most notable Japanese unlicensed games was Super Maruo, the first unlicensed Famicom game as well as the first pornographic game for that system. However, due to its high price at the time, this resulted in the game having low sales and not only becoming one of the rarest Famicom games, but also not having much of an impact.
The lack of any lockout technology on officially produced Famicom cartridges along with the Famicom's relatively simple hardware made it easy for companies in countries with less restrictive copyright laws (i.e., China and Taiwan) to clone the console and/or sell these clones, now referred to as Famiclones, starting some time in the late 1980s for a more reasonable price compared to importing the Famicom and its games from Japan. This along with the sale of cartridges containing pirated versions of licensed games, particularly in the form of multicarts containing multiple of these games, would allow these consoles to gain their own following in the countries they were sold in. These clone consoles would also pave the way for multiple grassroots video game industries in countries where they were sold, particularly in Taiwan and China. The first documented unlicensed video game produced outside of Japan for the Famicom was Duck - it was developed by Bit Corp., a Taiwanese company that previously developed Atari 2600 games and would also manufacture their own Famiclones, and was first published by them in Taiwan in 1987. The game was developed for Famiclone hardware in mind, as it takes advantage of a binary-coded decimal feature in the 6502, which was removed from the CPU the original Famicom used but retained in earlier Famiclones. As a result, the game cannot be played on an original Famicom/NES console or Famiclones that remove the binary-coded decimal functionality.
In 1986, Nintendo released the Famicom Disk System, an add-on for the Famicom which used proprietary floppy disks for its storage medium. While it utilized a physical lock-out in the form of "NINTENDO" lettering that is embossed on every officially produced disk, this weak form of copy protection, along with the disks themselves essentially being a version of Mitsumi's Quick Disk format, made piracy rampant for the accessory and also made it easy for developers to make unlicensed games for it. Despite this system being a potential prime target for unlicensed releases, the only known unlicensed Famicom Disk System games are various adult games developed and released in Japan. Many of these games were published by Hacker International, who would later publish unlicensed adult Famicom games on cartridge.
Due to the third-party issue Atari had which ultimately led to the North American video game crash of 1983, when Nintendo brought over the Famicom to Western territories as the Nintendo Entertainment System, they implemented a strict third-party licensing policy and added the 10NES chip to this version of the console and all games released for it. The contract for Western developers also forced them to only develop games for the NES, require them to pay for at least 10,000 cartridges that Nintendo themselves would manufacture, and dictate that only 5 games could be published a year and that Nintendo could decide which games can or cannot be published. While some of these companies found ways around the contract (Ex: Konami establishing the Ultra Games brand to publish more games than the contract needed), others didn't agree and attempted to find ways around the lockout method. One notable method used by Tengen was the "Rabbit Chip", which essentially acted like the 10NES chip found inside of the game cartridges. However, Nintendo would later sue Tengen for copyright infringement.[2] The requirement of bypassing the lockout chip for unlicensed NES releases along with the fact that Nintendo of America had the power to intimidate retailers from stocking unlicensed games resulted in very few unlicensed releases in Western countries being made.
With the release of the Sega Mega Drive, named the Sega Genesis in North America, third-party publishers (at least in Western territories) began moving over to that system due to its less restrictive licensing system. However, their third-party policy still forces publishers to only develop games for Sega. Because of this as well as the costs behind it, Accolade decided to produce unlicensed games for the system. Sega's lockout method involved part of the console's code known as TMSS (Trademark Security System) that would look for a string called “SEGA” within the game and if found, would not only let the game run but display the message: "Produced by or under license from Sega Enterprises, Ltd." Accolade was able to identify this code, produce the games they wanted and Sega filed a lawsuit against them. Accolade won and was later granted a license by Sega. Other companies such as Wisdom Tree and Realtec would also distribute unlicensed Genesis games in the United States. In Japan, the only known unlicensed Mega Drive games are two adult games, Dial Q o Mawaese! and Divine Sealing, and it is likely that other unlicensed Japanese Mega Drive games were not produced due to the system's poor performance in Japan. In a similar fashion to the Famicom, the Mega Drive/Genesis would be unofficially released in other territories where Sega had no control over it. It would notably gain a following in Taiwan, in no small part due to the sizable amount of unlicensed games developed and released for it domestically, with most of them including text written in Chinese. Gamtec and Chuanpu Technology would be the most prolific unlicensed game developers for the Mega Drive, with the latter developing fully fledged Chinese-language RPGs that would be distributed in both Taiwan and mainland China, and the former potentially releasing games for the system well into the late 90s, albeit leaning into producing originally developed yet infringing bootleg games by then.
In response to Sega's third-party policy, Nintendo would also loosen its own policies for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System albeit using a similar, improved lockout method for their games for both Japanese and international versions of the console. This in turn made it much harder to develop games without a license from Nintendo, and very few unlicensed games are known to have been made for the system. The only US unlicensed game released was Super 3D Noah's Ark, which instead of being a normal cart that has the ability to pretend to be a licensed cartridge to allow itself to run, it was a lock-on cart where you would insert a licensed SNES game into the slot and the signals from the chip in the licensed cart was sent down through the lock-on device and into the SNES, triggering the SNES to run Super 3D Noah's Ark. The Super Famicom had a few Japanese unlicensed games near the end of its lifespan, notably Hong Kong 97 and the adult games developed and released by EJ Corporation, notably the SM Choukyoushi Hitomi series of games. Very few unlicensed SNES titles were released in Taiwan - the only known games for the system released there are three games credited to Gamars, a brand name of Kaiser, and two anonymously released adult games, 16 Tiles Mahjong II - Horoscope Girls Edition (十六張麻將 星座女郎篇) and Super Big 2 (超級大老二). A string of unlicensed SNES games with infringing material would be sold primarily in South America, most of which are platformers and/or are based on similar unlicensed Mega Drive games. One of the publishers of these games is DVS Electronic Co., who would notably release the platformer Pocket Monster. It is believed that Gamtec are behind the development of these games, although there is currently no concrete evidence proving this.
After the fourth generation of games, unlicensed games for consoles in the main video game markets were almost nowhere to be found. This can be contributed to the rise in PCs as a gaming platform as well as mobile devices due to their lack of need of an actual license to be produced. However, in markets where 8-bit and 16-bit consoles were still holding up, various bootleg and unlicensed games were continued to be made for these systems. The only notable commercially sold unlicensed game was MaxPlay Classic Games which was released for the PS2 and GameCube in 2004 which just consisted of 10 Game Boy Advance games running on an emulator. However, some people have developed homebrew games for consoles no longer being marketed, sometimes selling carts of these games online or at conventions.
Unlicensed games and BootlegGames Wiki[]
For BootlegGames Wiki, we only document unlicensed games from the third console generation (Examples: NES, Sega Master System) and afterwards. While third-party second console generation games could be looked as "unlicensed", the fact there was no third-party policy established by any console manufacturers during that time technically meant there was no license to make any games.
Homebrew games also don't deserve a mention even if they end up ending on a pirate cart from a manufacturer. While they are technically unlicensed, they are generally done as a hobby and aren't sold by publishers.