Third Party published Intellivision games are unofficial

[aliensstudios]

In the Intellivision category, I made several edits on certain titles from "Official Release" and changed them to "Unofficial Release" titles such as:
Any of the Imagic titles
Any of the Activision titles
Any of the Coleco/CBS titles
Any of the Interphase titles
Any of the Atarisoft titles
Any of the Parker Brothers titles
should all be classified as "Unofficial Releases" correct? Although they were mass produced and commercially available, Mattel never sanctioned them to be sold on the system. Some games don't work on the Intellivision II console either. I was just looking for some clarification from an Admin who could maybe shed some light on this (preferably @badATchaos or @tripedacus) before I continue making edits and getting some accepted and some rejected without knowing why.

Also, the SEARS or Super Video Arcade games are all official Mattel releases, but the boxart was different. While many don't recognize these as Official Releases, the games themselves are the exact same as the versions Mattel published.

[tripredacus]

Split topic.

This is less relating to video game consoles of how they became standardized regarding licensed products post crash (NES+) and more relating to computer games instead. Whereas, nearly all computer games (or software) are official releases. One thing that stands out to me regarding these examples, is that all of them refer to the console using ® or ™ as you would expect from an "official" release of more recent things.

Let's see what others have to say.

[hexen]

I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree about them being unofficial.

These are published by major mainstream companies. Whether or not it was with the primary console company's intent or not I still feel this puts them in a different league. The climate of the time was also just so different... where some guy could make an Atari game in his bedroom and licensing was not a huge part of the equation, this applies for companies too.

The truth is this is a variable issue, and I'm not going to really care too much whether is says official or unofficial, but that is my two cents.

[aliensstudios]

I guess Mattel didn't really have licensing like Nintendo did with the NES and they never took legal action... Mattel never endorsed games made by Activision, Parker Bros., Imagic, Sega, Coleco etc. but a lot of those games are some of the most popular on the system and probably bolstered sales for Mattel even if they didn't see a dime of the profit from the software releases themselves.
@tripedacus, I totally overlooked the ® or ™ on the packaging, which I guess does constitute "official" releases usually. Oddly enough, the only titles Mattel barred from compatibility on the Intellivision II console variant are the Coleco published games, maybe since they were in competition with one another in the hardware market? Who knows.

[ignition365]

Are the early EA, Accolade, and Codemasters games considered Unofficial on the Genesis?

[glazball]

I think the "unofficial" argument is pretty thin and I'm kind of baffled it would even be suggested.  They weren't bootlegs.

[aliensstudios]

Are the early EA, Accolade, and Codemasters games considered Unofficial on the Genesis?

I think as long as this is on the packaging it's an official Genesis release

[aliensstudios]

I think the "unofficial" argument is pretty thin and I'm kind of baffled it would even be suggested.  They weren't bootlegs.

It's not really an argument, it's an inquiry. I don't really know if they're official or not, hence this conversation; getting other members' input on what they think. I think @tripedacus made some good points in his post as to why they should be official releases.

[ignition365]

Are the early EA, Accolade, and Codemasters games considered Unofficial on the Genesis?

I think as long as this is on the packaging it's an official Genesis release

So is Turrican technically Unofficial?
https://vgcollect.com/item/10577

[aliensstudios]

So is Turrican technically Unofficial?
https://vgcollect.com/item/10577

Yep

[burningdoom]

What you're referring to as official, is first-party vs. third-party. Just because it's a third-party game doesn't make it an unofficial release.

[aliensstudios]

What you're referring to as official, is first-party vs. third-party. Just because it's a third-party game doesn't make it an unofficial release.

Yeah, it's just hard to say whether these games are Mattel, endorsed versus just being games on the Intellivision, in all probability Mattel never licensed any of those titles and never saw a dime from them.
Tengen games on NES are third party, they're still unlicensed and therefore "unofficial releases" because Nintendo never licensed them. Mattel never licensed any of the third party games as well.
Tbh I'm fine calling them "official releases" since they were commercially released by big companies and since Mattel had no publishing standard or criteria.

[badATchaos]

To me, there should just be a flag if its homebrew or not. Unofficial is somewhat ambiguous when applied across different platforms.

Screw it get rid of it all.

[mastafafik]

I think that they should be as official releases. For me unofficial releases are bootlegs, pirated copies etc.

[aliensstudios]

It seems like the consensus is that they are official releases, I was just overthinking it I guess