Clone

In the computer and video game industry, a clone is a game or game series which is very similar to or heavily inspired by a previous popular game or game series, and lacks the official permission, blessing, or endorsement of the rights-holder of the original game it resembles. Some genres are founded by such archetypical games that all subsequent similar games are thought of as derivatives.

The term is sometimes derogatory, implying a lack of originality, but clones can be anything from a pure "ripoff", to a derivative or improvement on the original, or even a homage to it.

Given the newness of the software market in the 1980s, making a clone of a game was not illegal, provided there was no outright copyright violation (such as re-using copyrighted source code) nor trademark infringement (such as re-using the original's exact name). But as the gaming market grew, large developers felt the need and ability to sue the developers of clones which were too similar to originals [1]. These "look and feel" lawsuits, such as Apple v. Microsoft, are not common, but remain an option for developers who feel their franchises are at risk.

In contrast with its competitors like the Atari 800 line and the Commodore 64, the CoCo market often lacked authorized ports of major brand-name titles (especially games) and had to make do with clones instead. This was the price CoCo owners paid for having the unique convenience and reassurance of the vast network of thousands of Radio Shack stores and hundreds of Radio Shack Computer Centers offering CoCo repairs, upgrades, software, and accessories. Because Tandy mostly refused to let independent "brick and mortar" computer and department stores sell Tandy computers like the CoCo (with the exception of the short-lived TDP-100 experiment), those non-Radio Shack stores then did not want to sell CoCo accessories or software either, since those stores wanted to be able to sell you a computer AND the software for it. That meant the only available large-scale retail outlet for an authorized CoCo port would be Radio Shack stores, forcing big-name third-party software developers who wanted to do a CoCo port to ask Tandy to give it a Radio Shack Catalog Number and actually publish the title. That meant Tandy taking an additional chunk of the revenue even beyond the retailer markup. And THAT was if Tandy were even willing to allow its limited catalog and retail space to carry the title.

Sometimes Tandy itself published and sold clones. It's not always clear whether Tandy did this to simply cut out the licensing fee necessary to pay the rights-holders of the original game, or because the rights-holders had refused to permit Tandy to sell an authorized port out of not wanting to give Tandy a chunk of the revenue.

Other times, small independent software houses, much smaller than the giants that had written the originals, would do the clone and sell it through the vital channel of mail-order, advertised in CoCo magazines.

The upshot was that, in looking at the overall CoCo game library, the paucity of big-name brand-name titles makes the CoCo seem much more marginal and unpopular in the market than the large retail success it really was. Morale and the validation of having brand-name titles is a big part of the experience of owning a given platform, and unfortunately CoCo owners had to suffer the demoralizing effect of not having the official Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc. Although, again, we did have the compensating benefit of the gigantic retail presence of Radio Shack in contrast to Commodore and Atari owners never being certain what random department or mom-and-pop electronics store might carry the title they wanted.

Some examples of CoCo clones:

Donkey Kong

• The King
• Dunky Munky

Donkey Kong Jr.

• Junior's Revenge
• The Return of Junior's Revenge

Space Invaders

• Space Assault (Radio Shack title)

Missile Command

• Polaris (sold at Radio Shack)

Popeye

• Sailor Man

The CoCo did got some official authorized titles. Examples of non-clones are:

• Arkanoid
• Frogger
• Pooyan
• Rampage
• Super Pitfall
• Tetris
• Zaxxon

etc.