GBA roms, why do they have custom startup screens

[crashwg]

A few of the GBA roms that I have atained from various places on the 'net have a screen or two that is most deffinitly placed there by the person who has ripped the game.  Why are they there?  Is it more difficult to rip these particular games and that is why they are taking credit for them?  I just don't get it.

[Silver]

My guess - I think its kind of a 'Kudos' thing. I didn't think that GBA carts had any protection, but I could well be wrong. But it could be "we ripped it first" type thing.

Reminds of when Amiga's where Ruling the World, and copied/cracked games always came with an "intro" from the crackers - often involving music/graphics/slick coding. Games would be 'released' by groups who would sometimes slag each other off in the intros etc...etc.... Some of the intros were an absolute art form of animated 3d textured graphics with parallex scrolling at light speed - all crushed into 3K of assembler. There are even some sites on the net that preserve a lot of the tunes etc....

Another common reason for the intros was to allow you to select if you wanted the game modified or not - e.g. infinite lives/energy/time

[rockhopper]

You can remove the intros, there is a program to do it, can't remember what it is called, introremover? ask google

I know the intro they put on Zelda takes ages before you can actually start the game, very annoying!

[DougHillman]

My guess - I think its kind of a 'Kudos' thing. I didn't think that GBA carts had any protection, but I could well be wrong. But it could be "we ripped it first" type thing.

Reminds of when Amiga's where Ruling the World, and copied/cracked games always came with an "intro" from the crackers - often involving music/graphics/slick coding. Games would be 'released' by groups who would sometimes slag each other off in the intros etc...etc.... Some of the intros were an absolute art form of animated 3d textured graphics with parallex scrolling at light speed - all crushed into 3K of assembler. There are even some sites on the net that preserve a lot of the tunes etc....

Another common reason for the intros was to allow you to select if you wanted the game modified or not - e.g. infinite lives/energy/time

Dude, Amigas never ruled the world.  Amiga owners just convinced themselves that they did.  

[Hoagie_one]

you can find an intro remover here
http://n64.icequake.net/mirror/64scener.parodius.com/gbatools.htm

[Silver]

Some intro removers remove the 'added' intro (by the game ripper) but there are also removers/patchers that remove or allow-to-be-skipped overly-long genuine intros that are part of the game. Loads of GBA games seem to have about 15 screens at the start of developers/co-developers/marketers/owners etc..etc... that ususally can't be skipped. V annoying.

@DougHillman

Don't tell me - you had an Atari ST/E???      Man, the old A500 with 1/2 meg ram *STILL* multitasks better than Windows XP on a P4..... and I ain't actually joking.....

[nipsmg]

I take it none of you had a Commodore 64?!

hehe.. I can't believe this practice is back.  THis was the norm for Commodore 64 games..  There was always some kind of group intro before the game started.  Eaglesoft comes to mind (FULL SCREEN picture of an eagle with text scrolling on the bottom), or various intros with floating group names and scrolling text, with awesome SID music in the background...

God I feel old. (and i'm only 25!!!)

--NipsMG

[Hoagie_one]

,8,*

[nipsmg]

LOAD "*",8,1 RETURN

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