As a kid I didn't realize that the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" was part of a licensing scheme where Nintendo forced third parties to pay them to produce their cartridges and limited how many games they could release. I had no idea what the lockout chip was and why some third party cartridges were shaped differently.

Ostensibly it was to prevent the same shovelware that caused video games to crash during the Atari era, but how wonderful for them that it also funneled extra profits and control to Nintendo.

As a kid I didn't realize that the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" was part of a licensing scheme where Nintendo forced third parties to pay them to produce their cartridges and limited how many games they could release. I had no idea what the lookout ship was and why some third party cartridges were shaped differently.

Ostensibly it was to prevent the same shovelware that caused video games to crash during the Atari era, but how wonderful for them that it also funneled extra profits and control to Nintendo.