While my N64 came with all the official games on it, I'll tell a similar story:
Back in the day there were CD's packing a lot of games, often called Shovelware CDs. An example of those CDs would be "300 games in one!" but turns out these were all small games of questionable quality. Many of them were made in The Games Factory.
Then there were this CD called something along the lines "Play N64, SNES and Game Boy games on your computer!". It was an obvious buy, but upon examining its contents I was profoundly disappointed that all the roms were small techdemos that woudn't handle a candle to the real games.
The common theme here? Avoiding pissing off big companies! The little guy is not gonna come after us!
That being said... I grew a lot of affection for some of those "shovelware" games. Not only because some of them are actually good, but also because I feel like a archeologist when I see them. Most are rough around the edges sure, but they also are fascinating. Nowadays you associate small indie games with some pixelated game on itch.io, but back then there's no telling what kinda game you would find.
The most intriguing aspect of all: some of these games are very obscure, some to the point of not existing on the internet anymore. I regret not taking better care of my CDs and then uploading their contents to the internet archive, because there were some relics there.
Heh I really got Carrie'd away. But that's what forums are for.
