Trivia / Heavy Barrel

• Follow the Leader: Data East's version of Ikari Warriors. Really, it actually stole the source code from that game. SNK developer Koji Obada was well aware of Data East's shenanigans, but feels the industry's general disdain for copyright at the time played a great part in fostering knowledge and the development of good games.
  "The whole copyright situation was a mess back then, no one knew what was going on. Even a question as simple as “who owns the copyright to a game?” wasn’t clear at all. So we all copied each other."
  "Well, that’s because you could learn a lot by copying someone else’s work. I know Data East disassembled the PCB for Ikari Warriors in order to make a similar game. They ended up being unable to fully understand the code though, and just straight up copied the movement and actions. I just shrugged my shoulders. Even the slowdown was the same. I think that game was Heavy Barrel."
  "The thing is, there was no way they were going to be able to understand the code. If you ask why, it’s because I made it in a way only I would be able to understand. No one else could understand it. Only I knew why certain data was in there."
  "(...) I think everyone was imitating each other in the same way, making the same kind of things… but if that’s how the scene grows and expands, what’s the harm? In that kind of an environment the question isn’t about copyright or ownership, it’s about whether the idea is interesting or not, and if it was, you used it. It’s just data after all, numbers and letters."
  "If another developer copied your idea, you just got back at them by copying their idea next. It was kind of like we were sending messages back and forth to each other. I really liked that."
  —Koji Obada, Ikari Warriors director.