Does anyone here actually still pirate games?

[Panta Rhei]

Pirate is so 90's.

I am not a saint, I did pirate for PSX for a time. And for Dreamcast and OG Xbox as well. But it got saturated, which some of you guys already pointed out when you own a **** ton of no value isos. I ended up buying expensive PSX imports anyway, which all worked with my stealth modchip. Even the Capcom ones. I also bought a switched saturn once, and found out it was chipped. But I ended up buying some 80 originals for it and would enjoy them much more. But we did earn back our 4x burner back in '99, heh.

The Xbox was actually good when modded (Evo?), it was a versatile media player with MAME etc on it as well. But I ended up kicking even that out of the door. But 4 controllers, and NBA Hangtime or Simpsons. fun.

But its so useless nowadays. I play a lot of games online. With pirating you lose this benefit or risk doing so. Having to worry with every update is just not worth it. Its not like games are still so expensive, a lot of them can be bought for a tenner if you have some patience. And you can keep using every online feature the system offers.

I do love Arcade emulation. Playing the likes of Vapor TRX, Killer Instinct Arcade at home is pretty cool imo. I hook my notebook via HDMI, Saturn pad in USB and go a round of TMNT or Golden Axe Revenge of Death Adder with a friend.

[Sketcz]

No ****, Sketcz? The Chinese bootleg entire towns after European models. Anyway, does the piracy you advocate involve paying for reproduction code, as in the helpful example you gave of fake original paintings?

I don't know if you were being sarcasttic. But the painting thing is true.

Interesting question though. It depends. Is it possible for me to replicate Panzer Dragoon Saga? Yes. Can I replicate oil paintings? No. Can I burn EPROMS to create replica cartridges? No, so in that case I would pay someone for a replica Secret of Mana 3, with printed box and English version on cart. Lovely. Someone on here made a topic on this.

Ideally, what I really want is for rare games to be made available again on cheap digital download. Suikoden is very expensive. But it's only $6 on PSN. In that example I was very keen to give Konami my money, to show them that I would support such things.

Regarding the paintings - the original creators are long dead. So someone profiting doesn't bother me. I wouldn't pay for pirate games, except in the above SoM3 example. Deep down, I feel the creators should be rewarded for their work. Paying an eBay seller ?500 for a boxed copy of something rare is ridiculous and not neccessary when a duplicate works just as well.

[Golgo]

The towns thing is true too, Sketcz: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/chinese-copy-towns. Anyway I'm not judging anyone here. As long as a bootleg/piracy doesn't end up cheating the creator I think it's fair game. The gougers on eBay may make me turn pirate again for a copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy. Perhaps we should try to Kickstart a Chinese sweatshop for out-of-work coders and artists to make bespoke rare games complete with packaging? Hehe.

ps.: those paintings are bloody good value!

[Pavey]

But its so useless nowadays. I play a lot of games online. With pirating you lose this benefit or risk doing so. Having to worry with every update is just not worth it.

Hasn't been like this for a while now, google Link on the rgh. A whole online community of pirates.

[GordonJ]

Not since the old C64/Spec48 playground tape-swap and floppy disk 'pen pal' days of the 80s.

God we're old

My ps1 and ps2 were chipped, but that was only to play import games.

With the ease of buying/downloading games, piracy seems more hassle than it's worth

[sj33]

It would be a shame if many great games were lost into the abyss, held in the hands of a small handful of people, simply because any attempt to preserve gaming history is derided as 'piracy'. I don't pirate games and can't remember the last time I even considered it, but there needs to be a common sense approach. Many out-of-print games are only going to become harder and harder to obtain, and despite the rights still being owned by a copyright owner, have little to no chance of re-emerging on the market. Like Panzer Dragoon Saga.

Funnily enough, the only reason why the BBC and others have been able to release DVDs of their classic TV shows is because somebody somewhere in the world decided to make a bootleg copy. While the BBC were recording over their original masters, other people were preserving them. Good thing they did, or we wouldn't be able to watch the likes of Dad's Army, Steptoe etc. today.

As I say, I don't pirate and absolutely don't condone it, but there is a preservation issue that the industry really has to solve.

[Pavey]

I'm not sure that's such a good thing in the case of Dads Army

[chipsgravy]

A number of factors have pushed me away from piracy. The relative cheapness of games. Most games can be obtained for around ?20-?30 after a few weeks. There is no reason to 'chip' consoles as most are region free now. So no I have pirated a game in years. It was only ever a nice by product of wanting to play rare imports anyway.

[Panta Rhei]

Hasn't been like this for a while now, google Link on the rgh. A whole online community of pirates.

It could be. My last experience with pirating was with 360. I went to Ps3 before this broke out but lots of friends had flashed 360 consoles. And they all got banned from Live, they sold their worthless brick at a huge loss and went Ps3 for free online and buying games.

[nakamura]

I have a complete Secret of Mana 2 and it's lovely.

[Jay]

There is no reason to 'chip' consoles as most are region free now.

That's not even nearly true.

[Baseley09]

I used to pirate the **** out of PSOne, had games flooding in from all over the world for pittance, then Dreamcast to some extent.

Might touch the odd rom these days is about it.

[nakamura]

I've never really been a pirate. I never owned any PS1 copies and like I said a few pages back I only download games to demo them. If i don't like them I bin the discs.

[Decider-VT]

I have an Everdrive N8, so I suppose that I pirate every Famicom/NES game I play these days. Saves on space and lets me play on the original hardware, though.

[Guts]

Ideally, what I really want is for rare games to be made available again on cheap digital download. Suikoden is very expensive. But it's only $6 on PSN. In that example I was very keen to give Konami my money, to show them that I would support such things.

This. Thanks for not releasing Suikoden on Euro PSN, Konami! Luckily ePSXe and an ISO image does the same trick, so that's $6 you won't get Konami/Sony. I would pay good money for Suikoden III as well, but that's not going to happen either.