The Sega Seal of Quality was an icon placed on the packaging of all video games that had Sega's official approval to be played on a Sega console system. As was the case with the Nintendo Seal of Quality, the intention behind the "seal" was to avoid the mistakes that led to the North American video game crash of 1983 by ensuring that games were compatible with the intended Sega console system, and to censor content that Sega felt was inappropriate for their image. As was the case with the Nintendo Seal of Quality, the seal appeared on a video game's box and marketing as a means of informing the consumer that Sega had previewed the game before its release to ensure that the game was fully compatible for its intended home console system, and had met a certain level of Sega's standard of quality (in terms of graphics, sound, challenge, and possible offensive content). However, the Sega Seal of Quality was otherwise very different than the Nintendo Seal of Quality.
Sega never required a third-party software developer to earn the official seal as a precondition for publication, although most developers chose to do so. Furthermore, a game could earn the seal even if it contained certain themes that its bigger competitor, Nintendo, would have prohibited: blood, scantily clad females, and graphic violence. Hence, the seal was given out to Sega Genesis games that depicted blood (Splatterhouse 2, Techno Cop), and scantily clad females (Streets of Rage, Final Fight CD). Video games released on a Sega home console system could still censored by the software developer for other taboo or controversial depiction, including profanity, nudity, prostitution, and homosexuality. However, this was not done as a requirement issued by Sega to the developer.
In 1993, Sega of America permitted Acclaim to keep the graphic violence and gore in its port of Midway's popular arcade game Mortal Kombat. As this game and other games sparked a national controversy over violent content in video games, Sega created the Videogame Rating Council to give a descriptive rating to every game sold on a Sega home console system in the United States. This rating, along with the seal, would appear on the game's box and marketing. The Videogame Rating Council was phased out in 1994 with the adoption of the industry wide Entertainment Software Rating Board. Sega gradually shifted the scope of their Seal of Quality to focus less on content and more on assuring consumers that a game was fully compatible with its intended home console system. The seal was phased out after the discontinuation of the Dreamcast in March 2001.