Have you ever been driven to piracy?

I was a huge pirate back when I was in high school and had no money. I used to go to pirate BBSes and download PC games by the bucketfull, even crappy ones. I'd love to get legitimate copies of the games I liked, but some of them are really hard to find.

Now, I don't like piracy at all. It's a huge drag on the game industry, and it cheapens the experience of being a gamer. But, I don't think it's universally wrong to play a CDR of something. If it's worth playing, I will buy it soon after playing it. If not, then I'll throw out the disk and forget about it. It's the same as renting, really.

I don't think I actually "own" any CDRs, even Drac. X. There are dozens of ROMs on my HD, which is a whole lot better than dozens of carts in my living room, IMO.

Way back in the day, like '90 or so, my friends and I would pool money together, and buy some NES games. When we got them back to my buddy Rich's house, he'd carefully open them up, then take the chip out of the cartridge. He'd unscrew the security bolts with a cuticle trimmer to remove the chip.

Then, put it back together, without the chip inside, of course. Then the really hard part came. Resealing the game. I provided the shrink wrap, thanks to a huge surplus of cellophane from a bunch of unopened LP's my dad found. Rich wold use a soldering iron to seal the wrap, which wasnt vry effective most of the time. He owned a heat gun, thouh, so the shrink part was a cinch.

Next is the fun part. Going back to Lionel Play World to exchange these sealed games for different ones, only to repeat the process.

think colectivly, we had about 50-60 NES games, and a fucking huge stack of TurboGrafx HuCards.

It didn't stop at games, either. After a while my friend started to gut whole systems, then put a bunch of busted PC boards in the casings and return them for credit.

Rich made a nifty wooden caseing for a TurboGrafx-16. Bill had made a realy shity casing for a Genesis out of a figgin' cereal box. Imagine, a cut up box of Kellog's Triples with a couple of cords sticking out of it and a controler, playing Sword Of Vermllion. It was surreal.

Sigh. Memories.

Some facts for you on the costs of piracy, these aren't exact numbers since I don't feel like digging through my old rants on it-
billions in lost revenue
many LOST JOBS in the industry at every level.

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Originally posted by adol
Way back in the day, like '90 or so, my friends and I would pool money together, and buy some NES games. When we got them back to my buddy Rich's house, he'd carefully open them up, then take the chip out of the cartridge. He'd unscrew the security bolts with a cuticle trimmer to remove the chip.

Then, put it back together, without the chip inside, of course. Then the really hard part came. Resealing the game. I provided the shrink wrap, thanks to a huge surplus of cellophane from a bunch of unopened LP's my dad found. Rich wold use a soldering iron to seal the wrap, which wasnt vry effective most of the time. He owned a heat gun, thouh, so the shrink part was a cinch.

Next is the fun part. Going back to Lionel Play World to exchange these sealed games for different ones, only to repeat the process.

think colectivly, we had about 50-60 NES games, and a fucking huge stack of TurboGrafx HuCards.

It didn't stop at games, either. After a while my friend started to gut whole systems, then put a bunch of busted PC boards in the casings and return them for credit.

Rich made a nifty wooden caseing for a TurboGrafx-16. Bill had made a realy shity casing for a Genesis out of a figgin' cereal box. Imagine, a cut up box of Kellog's Triples with a couple of cords sticking out of it and a controler, playing Sword Of Vermllion. It was surreal.

Sigh. Memories.

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Thats fucking awesome.

hahaha, thats terrible!

I've got around 3 pirate games, some abandonware and loads of emulation.

When I was a kid, we switched out the insides of some NES games and sold them. I remember taking a new game they were buying for $28, swapping the insides with Duck Hunt (worth $2), and selling it to the local convenience/rental store. We laughed about that forever. After reading Adol's story, though, I think we were small time.

I'm guilty of emulating games that run on old, defunct games consoles. I do it mostly for the joy of nostalgia. I have no interest in pirating recent releases for consoles that are still making their creators money.

No. I buy my games.

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Originally posted by haohmaru
Piracy just sucks on every level. Evaluation, "I never would've bought it anyway", "It's old", blah blah blah blah

Either do it or don't do it. Please don't make excuses for it. =P

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I know it's kind of an excuse but...:P I only get enough extra revenue to buy a game like...once a year and that once a year is usually with Christmas money. I'm not a heavy pirate, I don't attempt to pirate every game out then say something dumb to justify it. I simply borrow games from my friends and either crack them or finish them then return them.