I assumed the same thing, particularly given the low quality, but I think it's pretty cool they are actually legit.
Probably the company was doing everything they could to encourage people to play the game, after realizing how bad it sucks.
These are pretty interesting.
Do you know anything about the history of them?
Are they just stock trophies that somebody printed a sticker and put on them?
Or were they actually distributed by Konami or...?
This is awesome.
One time many years ago I actually bought empty boxes directly from Wells Gardner with the correct styrofoam inserts so that I could ship monitors to someone else.
I just put the monitors in the boxes and took them to FedEx and they showed up in perfect condition
Yep, commonly called "anti cheat" buttons.
They were designed to prevent the game from being played in ways it wasn't intended to be played (like using a pencil), which made high scores easier to get.
This could reasonably be defined as cheating.