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.

Legality

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.

Cloning vs. Piracy

Clones were NOT pirated. Pirated games are directly copied (like Xeroxing a book and selling that copy). Sometimes the pirated came was entirely identical to the original but sometimes a pirated game has had to be "cracked" -- meaning its source code has been altered to remove or otherwise defeat anti-pirating features of the original code, such as commands to disable copying ability, or requirements that the user answer questions from the authorized version's printed manual, etc.

By contrast, clones do not make use of the original game's source code. Either the clone authors can't see or get to the source code because of copy protection, sometimes the source code is physically unavailable (being de facto locked away inside an arcade cabinet), sometimes the authors are just being careful to avoid being sued. Instead, their code is written from scratch, in an often-laborious effort to re-create the entire experience of the original game. Sometimes clone authors end up writing code very similar to the original because that's just the best or even only way to do it, but sometimes they find new and different ways to accomplish the same task.

Why did the CoCo market have so many clones?

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. As a result, the CoCo got fewer ports of major titles than Commodore, Atari, Apple, etc.

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 publisher's chunk of the revenue on top of the retailer markup.

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

The clone experience: Cons and Pros

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 being 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.

Again, though 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. And many clones were so good that, other than the prestige of morale-boost of the actual brand name title, CoCo owners got to enjoy the same action and other fun.

CoCo Clone Examples

Clone	Clone of	Publisher	Year	Catalog #	Palette
Space Assault	Space Invaders	Radio Shack	1981	26-3060	Green Red Blue Yellow
Polaris	Missile Command	Radio Shack	1981	26-3065	Various
Donkey King	Donkey Kong	Tom Mix Software	1982		Black White Red Blue
Buzzard Bait	Joust	Tom Mix Software	1982		Black White Red Blue
Junior's Revenge	Donkey Kong Jr.	Computerware	1983		Black White Red Blue
Trapfall	Pitfall	Tom Mix Software	1983		Green Red Blue Yellow
Sailor Man	Popeye	Tom Mix Software	1982		Black White Red Blue

CoCo NON Clone Examples

The CoCo did got some official authorized titles. Just a few examples of non-clones are:

Name	Publisher	Year	Catalog #	Palette
Arkanoid	Taito	1989	26-3043	Various
Frogger	Sega	1983	26-3065	Green Red Blue Yellow
Pooyan	Datasoft	1983	26-3048	White Cyan Magenta Orange
Pitfall II	SRB Software	1985	26-3287	Black White Red Blue
Tetris	Academy Soft-ELORG	1987	26-3163	Various
Zaxxon	Datasoft	1983	26-3062	Black White Red Blue

etc. etc.