Pirate Games

[Duddyroar]

I know some posted something about this in the Q&A forums recently, but I've just had a quick look on ebay for a copy of Zelda: Minish Cap on the GBA and I was pretty shocked at the results. 99% of the copies on ebay are obvious pirates. The big giveaways are that most copies are being sold/shipped from Hong Kong and they don't include a box or instructions.

The fact that all these pirate games are flooding ebay annoys me, not only does it damage legit sales but it makes it harder to find proper copies of the game. However the thing that pisses me off the most is that ebay seem completely oblivious to it. I've been stung by pirates a few times on ebay in the past and have reported, but it seems to make no difference. However, if you as much as mention import Dreamcast games in a listing, they remove it with hours.

Stupid fookers. ft:

[baad bwoy]

I bought an 'advanced scart cable' from ebay for my Xbox, this was a copy of the Microsoft advanced scart, pissed me right off, I guess it pays to enquire before bidding

[Yoshimoto]

The cynic in me thinks that's because eBay make a **** load more money from Hong Kong traders with hundreds of items for sale at any one time than they ever will from someone selling the odd import here and there.

I reckon it'll take Nintendo dropping them with massive lawsuit before anything is done about it.

[Duddyroar]

Well that's the only reason they clamp down on Dreamcast imports I think, Sega made a stink about it, God knows why as they're out of the hardware market now anyway. I'm shocked Nintendo haven't done something about this already. They moved fairly quick to stamp out importers - surely this is worse?

[Mad Gear]

It's the same with so much stuff now on e-bay.
My missus was after a Christian Dior purse and out of the 60 odd items it brought up i don't think there was one legit on there.

[Kotatsu Neko]

I thought Dreamcast imports were fine on eBay now? I've bought plenty in the past from eBay. It was only during the DC's life that Sega complained about it.

Try fidning a legit game in HK, it's virtually impossible. The differences are in the quality of the copies. At the midnight market they're all the 50 in 1 carts. At the posh shopping malls they're the badly printed card box variety, which from a distance look like the real thing. Piracy is everywhere in HK.

[Duddyroar]

They still pull imported DC games mate. I listed Daytona USA 2001 last week and within a day it was taken down, they stated it was against one of their bull**** policies. They obviously don't get all of them (I've bought imported stuff myself in the past) but this is the second or maybe even third one I've had taken down, and I've found DC games I've been bidding on removed too.

When you list a DC game you get a warning before you submit the listing asking if you are about to list a disc that allows you to play imports or backups (even if you're listed a PAL DC game!). So fook knows why they remove normal import titles, but then I've tried complaining and you get nowhere. ft:

[buster_broon]

I thought Dreamcast imports were fine on eBay now? I've bought plenty in the past from eBay. It was only during the DC's life that Sega complained about it.

i had bid on a dreamcast system with 10 imports last week and i got an email from ebay telling me that the auction had been pulled - so i didnt have to honour my bid

i never buy any gba games from ebay

i've been stung about 4 times in total and the winning bids plus postage has almost been a couple quid from the retail price - so that really annoys

even teh super mario advance 4 told me their was a problem every time it boote up and it wouldnt save any game

prefer to get the stuff from here - even play send the stuff cheaply but its always in a jiffy bag, which means you get the game crushed to bits

</rant over>

[Kotatsu Neko]

Weird, it must have been okay for a while as I bought loads a year or ago.

Surely you can just list it as a Dreamcast JP/import game they won't complain? Do a search for Dreamcast import on eBay, there are loads of games for sale.

[Commander Marklar]

It's something in the auction text, items are pulled automatically for the most part.

[Duddyroar]

I listed Daytona as a Japanese Import and I stated in the auction that it was an imported game and would not work on UK or US hardware. It still got pulled. They don't seem to need a reason, it's almost random the way they do it.

BTW: games listed via ebay.com don't seem to get pulled as much...

[mr_sockochris]

I got Astro Boy from eBay which turned out to be pirated (complete with 'Nintondo' logo on the back ) so i reported the seller and a few weeks later he had been banned which was quite nice to see.

[beecee]

i purhcased tekken for the gameboy for a friend on ebay and when it arrived it was a fake...

it had a poor box,(high gloss!!, spelling errors, the cart had 'made in Japam')

so i emailed the seller telling him to refund my money and i'll return the game as it was a fake, he replied saying that i was slanderous and that he didn't sell fakes! and that he okayed it with nintendo to inport the games (oh dear) so.....

so got back to him with 'ok then i'll send this to nintendo uk with your details and we will see if they like it. and in the meantime i'll leave the appropriate negative feedback.'

well he responded with 'if your going to be like that i'll refund your money, and i'll prefer it if you never left any feedback.'

so when i got the money back i promptly negged the bastard! and sent the game to nintendo with his details...mmm bannded soon after.

i'll never buy another gameboy game off ebay, i fnd most xbox, ps2 etc are legit..so occationally bid on them.

[Kubrick]

In my experience, auctions for legit import games will only get cancelled if you mention modchips, boot discs or other illegal ****.

[Jakeway]

There are always loads of Dreamcast copies on Ebay. I have even seen an auction that stated something like ?Any 10 Dreamcast backups for ?5?.

Its very annoying, I find myself Email sellers with games I want just to make sure they are not copies.

How do you report pirates?