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Was Professional Boulder Dash really a bootleg?
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 8:51 pm
by zaphod77
It seems a lot more likely that it was either a LEAK, or the original judging by a few things.
1) copyright date is one earlier. this suggest at leasts that its' a leak.
2) like other fangames around that period, it says "NO COPYRIGHTS"
3) Sijben Soft also made a Boulder Dash II editor.
Since these caves were released without copyright (if Sijben were the creators) it was perfectly legal for American Action AB to yoink the, and make a deal with First Star Software.
Where is the confirmation that American Action AB created the caves? First Star most definitely did NOT. American action AB brought the already done clone to them.
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:30 pm
by Arno
Welcome zaphod77!
Interesting questions... I've always assumed that Sijben Soft's version is a bootleg from BD3. There is some discussion about it at
this topic.
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 8:24 pm
by V-12/Tropyx
Who's know? Maybe Sijben Soft stealed original caves and released his version before official release? Or they did mistake with 1985 as year of release. This version must be a result of being annoyed with space theme in original BD3 I guess.
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 9:22 pm
by LogicDeLuxe
V-12/Tropyx wrote:This version must be a result of being annoyed with space theme in original BD3 I guess.
Could be. My theory was, that the space theme was a last minute addition after the game was bootlegged.
We really don't know. The theory that American Action actually stole the caves from Sijben Soft can also neither be proven nor disproven, I guess. Interesting idea, though.
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 1:55 am
by zaphod77
Well if sijben soft was the original makers, they said no copyrights. so it was perfectly legal to steal them (laugh). unless someone can contact them, it's gonna be hard to solve the mystery.
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:09 am
by LogicDeLuxe
zaphod77 wrote:Well if sijben soft was the original makers, they said no copyrights.
That's not that uncommon with cracks either. Crackers would do this to mock the copyright holder.
If you really meant this, you usually wrote "freeware" or "public domain", which was commonplace before licenses like Creative Commons, GPL, MIT License etc. existed.
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:27 pm
by V-12/Tropyx
Also another question is what happened with Sijben Soft?
According to this thread (hi Zaphod;)
http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 819d158743 Sijben Soft could be really original designer of the caves from BDIII. He made them for his own and later someone decided to sell this version officially.
The American Action AB release of Boulder Dash III states on the release that it's "Professional Boulder Dash III" - interesting