The publisher Greyfox Books has released its visual guide to the Sega Mega Drive 'The Mega Book Collection' for free online, after "a cease & desist" notice from Sega prevented it from making it available commercially (h/t Vintageisthenewold).
Greyfox Books, the publisher behind Atari: a Visual History and Coin-Op: The Arcade Guide, had originally planned to fund a similar book to its previous efforts via a Kickstarter campaign in 2021, but Sega's lawyers ended up taking exception to the project and sent them a C&D to stop production of it immediately. Rather than have all that work go to waste, however, Darren Doyle, the book's creator, has now decided to publish it on the Greyfox site as a free download, giving Sega fans access to the shelved release.
The book is 290 pages long in full colour and covers a range of Mega Drive, Mega CD, and 32X titles. It features a foreword from the infamous GameMaster contestant Dave Perry, as well as an interview with Core Design founding member Chris Shrigley.
As part of the announcement, Greyfox Books wrote:
"We attempted to bring this book physically to everyone back in 2021 via crowdfunding but alas we were unable to do so. So going forward, we decided rather than this amazing project to be left sitting on a hard drive gathering dust forever, we made the decision to offer it for free for everyone to enjoy and because we are very nice and generous people here at Greyfox Books and love to support the Sega retro gaming scene."
This piece of news comes in the wake of the recent Bitmap Books controversy, in which Sega forced that publisher to pull its plans for another Mega Drive/Genesis visual compendium. Sadly, it seems that the company isn't willing to tolerate these types of commercial projects any longer, which is a great shame considering both the nostalgia and historical value they offer to players.