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Sea of Stars
Sea of Stars (2023)
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Originally, YouTuber Jirard Khalil (most famous for his webseries "The Completionist") made a cameo in Sea of Stars as an NPC named "Jirard the Constructionist", who you could donate building plans to to help construct new buildings in the town of Mirth as part of the "Home Neat Home" achievement. This cameo came after Khalil had previously featured unique builds of Sea of Stars, including one featuring Jirard the Constructionist, during his annual indie game spotlight charity event "IndieLand", which was run by his official charity organization, the Open Hand Foundation. In November 2023, a few months after the game's release, Khalil was accused of committing charity fraud through the organization, spawning a controversy that prompted the game's developers to release a patch for the game that removed his cameo, and replacing him with a generic NPC named Bob. Considering Bob is a builder, this new character may be a reference to the children's animated series "Bob the Builder".
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Artwork/Illustration, Bonus Content, Cameo, Character Design, Charity, Complaint, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Reference, Update Difference
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month December 16, 2023
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Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (2007)
subdirectory_arrow_right Ace Attorney (Franchise)
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According to series creator Shu Takumi in a 2017 interview, Capcom executives issued two mandates affecting the writing of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. The first mandate was that the game had to include Phoenix Wright in the story, which went against Takumi's original idea for a reset of the series. The second mandate was to incorporate the Lay Judge system, a real-life judicial system, into the story, resulting in the creation of Spoiler:the MASON System game program and the trial run of a new Jurist System in the game's last case "Turnabout Succession". The Ace Attorney series began as a critique of how Japan's legal system handles criminal offenses, but around this time, that system was changing. While Japan previously suspended an older jurist system in 1943, their legislative body, the National Diet, gradually implemented a new lay judge system (裁判員, or "Saiban-in") from 2004 to 2009. This system, resembling more democratic systems in North American and European countries, calls upon six random common citizens to serve in serious criminal trials as inquisitorial judges sitting alongside three professional judges. Together they make up the judicial panel and actively analyze and investigate evidence presented to them throughout the trial before ruling on guilt and sentencing. Reflecting this, Spoiler:the Jurist System seen at the end of Turnabout Succession is made up of six random jurors guided by Phoenix Wright, where the player from the sixth juror's perspective has to rule the defendant Guilty or Not Guilty.

Takumi revealed that as part of the game’s promotion, Capcom collaborated with the Japanese Ministry of Justice and even gave a presentation of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney at the ministry's head office, implying that the system's mandated inclusion in the game was political propaganda. Despite Capcom cooperating in the Japanese government's push for this new system and despite participation experiences being reported as positive and easy to understand, the reception to other aspects of the system were largely negative. Complaints included gradually more severe sentencing since its implementation, the risk of criminal penalties for lay judges publicly discussing confidential deliberation room details after trials come to an end, and most starkly, calling upon Japanese citizens to put aside time to participate in the system, who have been increasingly unwilling to do so. This decline in interest has been largely attributed to the length of lay judge trials and even the length of pre-trial proceedings increasing significantly over the next decade, and due to aging populations and people simply not being able to make these commitments, more citizens refused to serve or even show up to be vetted for serving in the first place, making it harder to fill out the jury.

As a result of this reception, the Ace Attorney series has not used Spoiler:the MASON System and the Jurist System since, sticking with the series' traditional Initial Trial system in future games.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Backstory/Lore, Complaint, Corporate Affairs, Development, General, Inspiration, Legal Affairs, Politics, Real Life, Retcon, Suggested
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month January 9, 2024
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Company: Nintendo
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Despite Nintendo's current image as a family-friendly company, their initial success came from ties to organized crime. When the company was founded in 1889, hanafuda, which Nintendo manufactured cards for, was becoming increasingly controversial due to it being one of few betting games not covered by the Japanese Empire's anti-gambling laws, resulting in it becoming popular among the yakuza. While other companies were slowly exiting the hanafuda business as a result, founder Fusajiro Yamauchi pressed on, resulting in Nintendo becoming the country's most successful playing card manufacturer thanks mostly to strong sales among gang members.
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Corporate Affairs, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Sales
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 5, 2023
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Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
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Artwork/Illustration, Cancelled Release, Character Design, Complaint, Copyright, General, Legal Affairs, Multimedia Adaptation, Politics, Real Life, Social Media
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month November 17, 2023
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Dottori-kun
Dottori-kun (1991)
subdirectory_arrow_right Head On (Game), Arcade (Platform)
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Dottori-Kun, a 1991 demake of Sega's 1979 maze game Head-On, was created not to be played, but rather as a legal loophole around Japan's Electrical Appliance and Material Control Law which claimed that all arcade machines must contain a game when sold. Dottori-Kun allowed Sega to sell generic Astro City arcade machines which the arcade owner could swap the contents of at their leisure, and included test features to ensure the machine worked properly before installing a proper game. The game did not support coin insertion, and therefore was not a viable option for arcades even if an owner believed there was an audience for its simplistic gameplay and graphics, leading to the board being scrapped most of the time.
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Corporate Affairs, General, Legal Affairs, Placeholder, Remake, Technology, Unused Content
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 3, 2023
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Cooking Mama: Cookstar
Cooking Mama: Cookstar (2020)
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While the game was briefly released physically and through the Nintendo eShop on the Switch, the game was later made unavailable for purchase. The original rumor was that the game was using the Switch's hardware to mine cryptocurrency, but this was later discredited by the game's producers. It was revealed that the reason for the game's quick removal from sale was due to a lawsuit between the game's publisher, Planet Entertainment, and IP owners Office Create. The lawsuit claimed that Planet Entertainment's license to use the Cooking Mama IP expired the day before Cookstar's release.
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General, Legal Affairs, Rumor, Theory
person KidDivinegon calendar_month November 19, 2020
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SimCity
SimCity (1989)
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Attachment In the original release of the game, the monster that the player could summon to attack the city was a thinly veiled parody of Godzilla, right down to using the character's iconic roar from the film series; the sound effect is even named "God" in the game's files, furthering the reference. The Godzilla parody is also depicted on the game's box art, gleefully waving at the viewer.

According to programmer Don Hopkins, who notably ported SimCity to numerous versions of Unix, Maxis ended up getting sued by Toho, the owners of the Godzilla franchise; additional details were recounted to him by Maxis CEO Jeff Braun:

"We never referred to the name Godzilla, our monster on the box cover was a T-Rex looking character, but... a few magazine reviews called the monster, Godzilla. That was all it took. Toho called it "confusion in the marketplace". We paid $50k for Godzilla to go away. In all honesty, Toho liked Maxis, they said $50k was the minimum they take for Godzilla infringement."

As a result of this suit, the monster was redesigned in the v1.2 release to resemble a giant orange salamander. The creature's roar is also changed and the game's box art is redesigned to replace the Godzilla parody with a tornado. In the v1.3 release, the salamander is given a slightly larger and more detailed sprite to fit the revised art style, but its roar (now internally renamed "Monster") is corrupted.
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Artwork/Illustration, Censorship, Character Design, Glitch, Legal Affairs, Magazine, Parody, Plagiarism, Reference, Release Difference, Reviews, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Version Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month April 22, 2024
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The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/SimCity_(Mac_OS_Classic)#Godzilla_vs._Notzilla

Don Hopkins testimony in a Hacker News post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40050799

MobyGames gallery showcasing the different box art designs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/848/simcity/covers/
Cooking Mama: Cookstar
Cooking Mama: Cookstar (2020)
subdirectory_arrow_right Yum Yum Cookstar (Game)
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Yum Yum Cookstar appears to have been made as some kind of contingency over Cooking Mama: Cookstar's infamous legal disputes, being made by the same developers and publishers and having gone on sale on Steam a mere week before Cooking Mama: Cookstar was withdrawn from sale. While it is not known to what extent Yum Yum Cookstar is based on Cooking Mama: Cookstar, it does have a substantial difference in gameplay, having a psuedo-rhythm element that does not exist in the latter game.

Some prints of the box art have a printed sticker noting the game's connection to Cooking Mama: Cookstar, in spite of the controversy. The official website, TikTok account, and trailers for Yum Yum Cookstar proclaim the game to be made by "the creators of the best-selling hitgame[sic] Cookstar" (without acknowledging the Cooking Mama series by name) and use the slogan "This ain't your mama's kitchen!". The veracity of the claim of the first Cookstar being a best-seller is not known as sales figures have not been released.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Asset Reuse, Box Art, Complaint, Delisted, Inspiration, Legal Affairs, Social Media, Website
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month April 11, 2024
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)
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Attachment Shortly after the game's release in 2020, the government of China ordered gray market online storefronts to stop selling the game. While no official reason was given for the ban, fans and analysts speculated that it was due to players in Hong Kong using the game's customization features and online connectivity to broadcast messages in support of protests that were occurring at the time against changes to the region's extradition laws. Around the same time, the game was also used by Joe Biden's campaign team to advertise his candidacy in the 2020 United States presidential election by creating a dedicated island and customizable items.

16 days after the election in November, Nintendo updated the game's Usage Guidelines for Businesses and Organizations, significantly narrowing how they could use the game for advertising. This included a rule requesting that offensive content be refrained from being created in-game, along with a statement asking to "refrain from bringing politics into the Game." However, this rule does not clarify what "politics" specifically Nintendo wanted to keep out of the game, and it appears to be in effect for any content created after the update, as it seems that none of the Hong Kong protest content or the Biden campaign's promotional content were taken down.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Censorship, Corporate Affairs, Legal Affairs, Politics, Real Life, Update Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month March 28, 2024
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The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (2021)
subdirectory_arrow_right The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve (Game), The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures (Game)
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Due to long-standing copyright issues regarding the character Sherlock Holmes brought about by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate (which had previously delayed the games' release), the international release of The Great Ace Attorney games changed his name to "Herlock Sholmes". According to series creator Shu Takumi, this was done as an allusion to "Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes", a story collection by Maurice Leblanc.

Following the announcement of the name "Herlock Sholmes", various memes came about surrounding the character and the circumstances for the renaming in regards to copyright law. This got to the point where major news outlets began covering it, with some noting that the goofy-sounding name "fit with the comedic and sometimes irreverent tone of the Ace Attorney series, even if it does leave a few things lost in translation."
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Copyright, Development, General, Inspiration, Legal Affairs, Name Change, Real Life, Reference, Regional Difference
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month January 24, 2024
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Diddy Kong Racing
Diddy Kong Racing (1997)
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Attachment The racer Krunch wasn't originally designed as a Kremling. According to former Rare artist Kevin Bayliss (in a now defunct Facebook page for Rare alumni), the character predated the conversion from Pro-Am 64 to Diddy Kong Racing and was originally a generic crocodile character, brought in to introduce a "bad guy" into the game's roster.

When it was decided to incorporate Diddy Kong into the game and change the title to Diddy Kong Racing, it was also decided to turn the crocodile character into a Kremling named Krunch, perhaps to better tie it into the new Donkey Kong-infused lore. The decision to turn Krunch into a Kremling, a Nintendo-owned species, also automatically gave Nintendo the rights to the character as well, even retaining said rights after the Microsoft buyout in 2002, whereas all the other Diddy Kong Racing racers outside of obviously Diddy are now owned by Microsoft.
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Character Design, Copyright, Corporate Affairs, Development, Early Idea, Inspiration, Legal Affairs
person Dinoman96 calendar_month January 19, 2024
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Source Gaming article on Krunch's history:
https://sourcegaming.info/2017/11/15/new-content-approaching-krunch/

DKVine article on Diddy Kong Racing's copyrights:
https://dkvine.com/?p=news_body&post=6391

Rare scribes confirming that Krunch is still owned by Nintendo:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070628215552/http://rareware.com/extras/scribes/25jun07/index.html
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid (1998)
subdirectory_arrow_right One (Game), Gran Turismo 2 (Game), Tekken 3 (Game), Xbox (Platform), PlayStation (Platform), Dreamcast (Platform), PC (Microsoft Windows) (Platform), Sony Interactive Entertainment (Company)
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Attachment Bleem! was a PlayStation emulator released for Microsoft Windows 98 and the Sega Dreamcast. Unlike the vast majority of emulators before and since, it was released as a paid product on store shelves. Bleem!, although very impressive for the time and capable of running on low-end PCs, had many compatability issues, with the only game that ran perfectly on Windows Bleem! being the US version of One, while the only games that could be run at all on Dreamcast were Tekken 3, Metal Gear Solid, and Gran Turismo 2, all with specialised emulators released on their own "Bleemcast" discs.

Sony would sue Bleem! twice over alleged copyright infringement, and despite all odds, Sony lost due to Bleem!'s use of screenshots in promo material and the PS1 BIOS being protected by fair use. However, a mix of legal fees and Sony threatening retailers stocking Bleem! products with subpoenas would force Bleem! off of shelves anyway, and its website would be replaced with an image of Sonic the Hedgehog mourning at a grave with the Bleem! logo carved on it. Bleem! would countersue Sony for anti-competitive activity.

The popularity of Bleem! would lead both Sega and Microsoft to attempt to work with Bleem! officially to make PS1 games run on Dreamcast and Xbox, though these plans fell through due to Sega being afraid of Sony's litigation, while the developers of Bleem! simply felt Microsoft wasn't paying high enough for the license for Bleem! (something they had come to regret in the years since).
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Console Difference, Copyright, Emulation, Legal Affairs
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month December 28, 2023
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Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
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Dan Slott, a comic book writer best known for his work on Marvel Comics such as "The Amazing Spider-Man", "Fantastic Four", and "Silver Surfer", wrote for two issues of Archie's "Sonic Super Special" series as part of its "Zone Wars" storyline. Despite these being his only works for the comic, he did make one notable contribution: Zonic the Zone Cop, an alternate reality version of Sonic who monitored all realities in order to maintain balance across the various Zones, though allowing other people to appear in other Zones when they are needed. In November 2022, in response to various fan questions about Zonic, Slott noted that he was willing to collaborate with Sega to bring him back, and had no protective hang-ups over the character unlike an unspecified Sonic creator who was "super protective of all the characters he's created over the years to the point where SEGA doesn't want to use ANY of them in other media" (likely referring to legal issues surrounding former writer Ken Penders).
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Backstory/Lore, Credits, General, Legal Affairs, Multimedia Adaptation, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month December 22, 2023
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War Thunder
War Thunder (2013)
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Starting in 2021, War Thunder's official forums became notorious for being the center point of multiple leaks of export-restricted or regionally classified military documents from around the world detailing how various weapons and transportation equipment like tanks and fighter jets are built. The leaks are attributed to the fact that the game strives to depict the minutiae of warfare as realistically as possible, leading to players with military connections, or access to resources that are publicly available in other regions, sharing the documents on the forums in order to prove points regarding what would or would not be accurate in-game. Despite the forum moderators quickly removing these posts and issuing multiple warnings about them breaching international law, the issue became so prominent and recurring that laypeople began spreading rumors that the United States military had to start filtering out War Thunder players during the recruitment process, which American weapons contractor RTX Corporation denied.
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General, Leak, Legal Affairs, Misconception, Real Life, Rumor, Social Media, Technology
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 13, 2023
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Company: Atari
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Founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney originally wanted to name Atari "Syzygy," only to learn that the name was already taken by a roofing company. Consequently, the pair decided to brainstorm new ideas while playing a round of Go, which Bushnell was experienced in; an issue of Atari's home computer magazine I/O stated that "Their best brainstorming always occurred over a good game and a bottle of beer."

Following this, Bushnell and Dabney decided to name the company after a piece of Go jargon, settling on "Atari," a term used to describe a playing piece that is surrounded on all but one side. "Sente" and "Hane" were also considered as possible names.
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Corporate Affairs, Early Idea, Inspiration, Legal Affairs, Magazine, Name Change
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 13, 2023
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Flappy Bird
Flappy Bird (2013)
subdirectory_arrow_right Flappy Birds Family (Game), .GEARS Studios (Company)
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Flappy Bird was removed from app stores by creator Dong Nguyen on February 8th 2014, due to being overwhelmed by its success and feeling guilt over the addictive, frustrating nature of the game, which he had originally intended to be relaxing. Although many speculated that the game was taken down by Nintendo due to the game's pipes and their similarity to the pipes from the Mario series, both Nguyen and Nintendo denied this.

Nguyen claimed that his worries about the game had lost him sleep, and removing the game from sale managed to restore piece of mind - despite this, Nguyen did promise a Flappy Bird comeback, albeit in a less addictive form, which would eventually come in the form of an official sequel: Flappy Birds Family for Amazon Fire TV.

Some eBay users attempted to sell the iPhones with the original game installed for up to $99,900, but the listings were removed due to eBay's rules against selling technology that has not been factory reset.
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Apology, Complaint, Corporate Affairs, Difficulty, Legal Affairs, Meme, Plagiarism, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Theory
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 24, 2023
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Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
subdirectory_arrow_right Atari (Company), Nintendo (Company)
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Shortly after the Famicom's launch in 1983, Atari approached Nintendo offering to distribute the system outside of Japan as the Nintendo Enhanced Video System. Negotiations for the arrangement stalled when Atari saw a demonstration for the Coleco Adam home computer system that used the ColecoVision port of Donkey Kong as a demo title. Because Atari previously gained the exclusive PC port rights to the arcade game, they assumed that Nintendo was also working with Coleco behind their backs. By the time the misunderstanding was cleared up, the North American video game industry had crashed and Ray Kassar had stepped down as CEO of Atari, causing the agreement to be called off entirely. The Famicom wouldn't reach international shores until 1985, when Nintendo began distributing a revised version in North America themselves as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
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Console Wars, Corporate Affairs, Early Idea, Legal Affairs
person VinchVolt calendar_month November 18, 2023
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Power Punch II
Power Punch II (1992)
subdirectory_arrow_right Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch (Game), Punch-Out!! (Franchise), Mike Tyson (Franchise)
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Cancelled Release, Celebrity, Legal Affairs, Misconception, Name Change, Rumor, Theory, Unused Character, Unused Content
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 17, 2023
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Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (2008)
subdirectory_arrow_right Sonic The Hedgehog (Franchise), EA Games (Company), Sega (Company)
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Upon the release of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Ken Penders, a former writer on the Archie Comics Sonic comics, sued Sega and EA for supposedly using Sonic character concepts he had independently trademarked prior - particularly the Nocturnas Clan, a futuristic echidna tribe which he deemed as too similar to his own Dark Legion, a futuristic echidna technocracy. This lawsuit came months after Archie Comics filed their own suit against Penders due to a breach of contract after the trademarking, causing Archie to allow their contract with Sega to expire so they could negotiate new terms for the rights to create Sonic comics. This legal fiasco ended in Archie settling the case with Penders, losing the exclusivity to produce Sonic comics after negotiations with Sega, and causing them to write the "Super Genesis Wave", a super-charged energy blast utilizing the Chaos Emeralds that acted as a massive continuity rewrite where over 500 original characters and concepts created by Penders and other writers for the Archie Sonic comics were retconned. The Sega case on the other hand ended in a stalemate due to the statute of limitations, and will not be able to continue unless Sega uses characters from The Dark Brotherhood again.
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Character Design, Complaint, Copyright, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Retcon
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 16, 2023
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Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
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On April 8th, 2022 (the American release date for the film "Sonic the Hedgehog 2"), former Archie Comics writer Ken Penders revealed that he was contacting his legal team in regards to the Echidnas and their backstory featured in the film. According to Penders, both Knuckles' unnamed father and the workings of the film's depiction of the Master Emerald were derivitive of two of his characters, Locke and Enerjak. Despite the fact that the powers of the game version of the Master Emerald had been established back in 1994 with the release of Sonic & Knuckles, Penders has claimed to have legal ownership over the ideas he created in 1996. However, as of March 2024, no lawsuit has materialized.
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Backstory/Lore, Complaint, General, Legal Affairs, Multimedia Adaptation, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month March 25, 2024
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