Australian "Sega Approved Import" Research Thread

[supergamboy | 61]

In another thread, user @Enternal posted some questions about games being sold in Australia and maybe the UK that had a "Sega Approved Import" sticker on the cases.

They wrote: From my limited research there are a small number of titles let's say 25 (I'm guessing here) but you see the same ones, with Rolling Thunder 2 being one. They are Sega Genesis carts that got exported. These were possibly only distributed by Virgin Record Stores in the UK and Australia. And likely only games that did not get a mega drive release in their country. They were stickered prior to distribution then sealed and appear on the insert. (You can see this on the Ys III insert outside of the case)."

So I went ahead and did some digging. I looked through about 7,000 active listings on eBay Australia. I didn't look at completed or sold listings. I probably should have filtered just for Australia-based listings, but I forgot. I haven't searched anything for the UK. I probably don't plan to! Ha. I saved pictures of everything I found and will maybe incorporate them below or in a linked album.

So I'll kick off a research thread and if anyone cares, go ahead and continue it and use this thread to document any findings.

Findings:

• All of the games that received this sticker are US version games; some of the games did also get a Mega Drive release (such as Bubsy II and Rolling Thunder 2)
• The stickers all on on the outside of the case (both clamshell and cardboard boxes from Accolade)
• I found no Electronic Arts or Acclaim/Flying Edge games that had this sticker
• I only found a single Sega-published game that had this sticker (Jurassic Park); however, Jurassic Park got an official release in Australia, so I suspect this was a case swap or re-case
• Here is a list of 3rd party publishers on whose games I found the sticker: Absolute, Accolade, GameTek, Kaneko, Koei, Namco Razosoft, Renovation, Sunsoft, Taito, Takara, Tengen, Tradewest
• For Sunsoft, Takara, and Koei, I only found 1 example each. The Namco one is an image Enternal provided
• There is nothing to indicate that these were imported for sale at a single store (such as Virgin Records). I did notice a LOT of rental stickers on games that had the "Sega Approved Import" sticker. But that may just because dirty games with a ton of stickers just sit on eBay with high prices and don't sell, which is good for data like this research set, but may not mean for example that "rental stores imported these games"
• I'm not sure whether the publisher had anything to do with the export process for these games. If so, I'm surprised that a company like Mentrix (Championship Bowling) would have done so. 
• The list below may have other errors based on case swaps. 
• I think I saw one game that also had a Australia ratings sticker added. But now I can't find the picture
• If you're collecting say US games, I would not view these games as variants that should be pursued. As the sticker text implies, these were games imported for sale in Australia (maybe the UK also, I haven't looked)

List of games (alphabetically, with publisher noted). I also put the eBay links, all current as of January 21, 2024

1. American Gladiators (GameTek): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195690121649
2. Awesome Possum (Tengen): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/304776577464
3. Ballz 3D (Accolade): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/325512383090
4. Barkley Shut Up and Jam (Accolade): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/276218528531
5. Battletoads (Tradewest): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/305174638554
6. Blaster Master 2 (Sunsoft): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/134808513268
7. Bubsy II (Accolade): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/305174637736
8. Cadash (Taito): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/186175888433
9. Championship Bowling (Mentrix): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195529187360
10. Championship Pro-Am (Tradewest): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195529186924
11. Chester Cheetah Too Cool to Fool (Kaneko): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/186171311860
12. David Crane’s Amazing Tennis (Absolute): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/314851529153
13. Deadly Moves (Kaneko): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/276209036234
14. Death Duel (Razorsoft): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/295824710646
15. Dinoland (Renovation): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/134732759697
16. Elemental Master (Renovation): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/296173906234
17. Flintstones (Taito): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/176172287806
18. Gadget Twins (GameTek): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/116018227710
19. Gauntlet IV (Tengen): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195529158074
20. Genghis Khan 2 (Koei): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195528441551
21. Hardball III (Accolade): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/185899322743
22. Humans (GameTek): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/116018227296
23. King of Monsters (Takara): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/325512348263
24. Power Challenge Golf (Accolade): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195528426932
25. RBI Baseball 93 (Tengen): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195540347374
26. Rolling Thunder 2 (Namco)
27. The Duel(Accolade): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/155572392247
28. Toys (Absolute): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195527940206
29. Traysia (Renovation): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/195527939148
30. Universal Soldier(Accolade): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/185899322161
31. Valis III (Renovation): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/325566010661
32. Ys III (Renovation): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/285659725011

And listed separately, Jurassic Park (Sega): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/385180940263

If someone wants to take this further, you could look up the release years for the above list and try to discern if only games in a certain period got that import sticker.

Photos in an Imgur album here: https://imgur.com/a/j23wttN

Edited January 22 by supergamboy

[Brickman | 3,995]

Wow pretty interesting stuff. I’m from Australia and never saw this stuff growing up or even had heard the Mega Drive called the Genesis until I was an adult. 

I checked a few pictures and it looks like they must have been mostly in video rental stores (video ezy) and also independent video rental stores. I saw a Frankston sticker which is only about 40mins from me.

They could have been sold at Virgin megastore too like you mentioned. I was too young to remember those and I am guessing there was probably only one or two max in each city of Australia due to the small population.

[Enternal | 15]

Wow amazing work! Thank you for doing all that. When I was asking around and looking one of the responses I got on the Sega16 forums.

Overdone @ Sega16forums

"There was only one place that I saw that had a source of these when they were available bird, and that was Virgin Megastore.

 

Fighting Masters was one of them, I know because I picked it up. I think I remember Rolling Thunder 2 being there as well but can't be sure.

 

Interesting thread, probably not a lot of info about these stickered releases."

@supergamboy It will be interesting to see how much more info on these will come out from the community hear, I think by far you have done the most research.

 

[fcgamer | 4,730]

I don't think you will find any Electronic Arts games with that sticker. EA handled the fabrication of their own games, and it's my understanding they also handled the distribution of their games. For example, EA distributed their games in Taiwan (where they were all fabricated), so there's a huge disproportionate amount of EA games here compared to other NA games. 

[Enternal | 15]

Adding Splatterhouse 3. I believe I remember also seeing Rolling Thunder 3 with a sticker but have been unable to find evidence.

[Enternal | 15]

Went ahead and pulled my copy out. Rental link supported. I didn't even notice mine had a rental sticker under the game.

I wanted to clarify that the sticker is on the insert in my original post I worded it weird. We will need maybe some other examples to. Maybe some people here have some of these in their collections that they can share.

Though looks like in the imgur album some have the sticker on the outside of the case.

Edited January 23 by Enternal

[Brickman | 3,995]

14 minutes ago, Enternal said:

Went ahead and pulled my copy out. Rental link supported. I didn't even notice mine had a rental sticker under the game.

I wanted to clarify that the sticker is on the insert in my original post I worded it weird. We will need maybe some other examples to. Maybe some people here have some of these in their collections that they can share.

Though looks like in the imgur album some have the sticker on the outside of the case.

Yeah these were definitely available through video rental stores. That rental sticker in your picture was very common for independent rental stores here at the time.

It is most likely that the majority of these were available at independent rental stores vs blockbuster imo. Don’t have any proof but from looking at those pictures they were mostly independent video stores. Video Ezy was a pretty big chain, but at the time probably weren’t as big, so they may have been happy to get some of these imports in.

[DQuick | 1]

A few more points to add:

• They often appear with rental stickers but there are definitely plenty without any rental stickers.
• There are a number of releases for which there was also a specific Austalian local release, Gauntlet, Battletoads, King of Monsters, Jurassic Park.
• Jurassic Park is not a cart swap, it appears semi frequently.  Curiously it does not actually play on a PAL system without an import adapter and some copies have a sticker indicating this.

In regards to EA I have never seen an EA game with the import sticker, while EA likely did manage their later distribution directly certainly very early EA games appear to have been put together and distributed by Ozisoft (you can easily find EA games on Austalian ebay with the tell tale blue manuals).  EA games in Austalia is a whole other topic.