VFame's Pokemon Ruby box art reused for a PocketNES hack?

[codeman38]

OK, this is an interesting one. While Googling to find some old forum threads related to bootleg games, I stumbled across this one where someone posted about finding a "Pokemon Green Diamond" cart for GBA (actually a PocketNES cart of a Keroppi hack):

http://s15.zetaboards.com/Tulunk_Village?topic=515226/1/

I think I remember stumbling across this post back in 2008 or 2009. But I just noticed something new about it now that I'm even more familiar with Game Boy bootlegs.

Specifically: check out the back of the box. It is taken directly from VFame's Pokemon Ruby for GBC. Like, they just photocopied the box and added new logos on top of it.

Which, of course, leads me to wonder just how these bootleggers even had access to the box from that particular bootleg...

[Robyn]

I'm guessing they had the game and photocopied it. Or, maybe it's published by New Game. I have this one as Pokemon 2002.

[Superjustinbros]

Ah, PocketNES. I remember my cousin having one of those, it had a lot of bootlegs.

[Azathoth]

As far as I can tell, these counterfeit operations (as opposed to "legitimate" unlicensed developers making an original product) have a generic template to produce GBA boxes. The GBA logo on the front left is always the same quality and they usually have the same UPC code and warning paragraph. I've gotten a bunch of commercial games that you could tell the cover art was blown up from a shitty low dpi scan grabbed off the internet, but the logo on the left was still high quality. The backs are sometimes the same as retail or just a simple colored background with some screenshots and cut & paste text grabbed somewhere from the net.  

Besides PocketNES hacks and fan-made Pokemon stuff, the only unlicensed games I've run across put out by pirates has been Digimon Ruby and Sapphire. I guess the protection routines on unlicensed GBA games worked out since they weren't cracked until long after pirates moved on from GBA production.