
In a raid executed last Sunday, 85,000 "discs" of pirated software and other counterfeit goods were seized at an East Yorkshire market. One notable bit of contraband brought in by the haul was a pile of carts marked Volume 9 DS Games, each cart loaded with £6,000 ($11,859) of DS games according to the Entertainment Leisure And Software Publishers' Association's team of "forensics experts."
The ELSPA reports that the Volume 9 DS Games carts have been circulating for the past month and contain approximately 200 commercial releases, which explains where the £6,000 estimate sprung from (£30 x 200). We did the math -- well, actually, our calculators did the math -- and you would have to mow about 593 lawns to raise enough money to purchase that many games. That is, of course, assuming you're not one of our smart (and handsome) readers who follow our regular posts on video game bargains.
We know a few of you out there are pirates -- you make sure to rub it in our face whenever we lament about overpriced new releases and expensive imports. Have you bootlegged anything close to £6,000 of commercial DS games? Have you packed all those black-market ROMs into one cart to create your own Volume 9 DS Games collection? And how did you end up spending the money that should've gone to the people who worked hard to create the products you filched?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-10-2008 @ 12:10PM
RupeeClock said...
How do you fit that much data onto a single cartridge? A single rom can range from 16-64mb usually (without trimming), sometimes you get 128mb roms.
Standard cheap memory is usually about 1-2gb, or 1024/2048 mb.
Do the math, 2048/16=128 possible games.
I think what's going on here is the common tactic of taking the same few titles, and renaming them to fill out a big list.
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4-10-2008 @ 12:45PM
FoliathR said...
I think DSF made a small mistake there.
Seems that the news reporters don't even know that DSes don't run on "discs", happily using the term "Nintendo DS Discs" in their article.
I think the games were sold as a pack on CDs, for people with flash carts to play.
4-10-2008 @ 12:46PM
FoliathR said...
*Sorry, not DSF, wanted to type "the source article" but somehow my mind screwed up >.< Sorry Eric and other DSF reporters.
4-10-2008 @ 12:54PM
Daniel Ferguson said...
Welll..... I AM a pirate. I own a M3 Real. And I love it. If I see a new game I'll download it and try it. I have 50 roms on my card. They don't stay there too long. I use it mostly for try before I buy. It has saved me from dropping cash on games that suck, But I'm not gonna be rolling in the dough from all the money I "saved." Two Days ago I dropped my DS in the toilet. I wasn't playing it or anything. It fell out of my sweatshirt pocket. So my "savings" from piracy will go towards buying a new DS or getting this one repaired.
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4-10-2008 @ 1:26PM
reef said...
I just have to say this. If I had two children and a wife to make sure I had no cash in my pockets I'd probably pirate games. I'd probably pirate every US release ever made. And with the Right Flashcart you CAN hold 4-8gb of info which can easily be 200 games. That is to say IF I were to pirate games, I of course Own all my gaes and back them up so that Nothing happens to the original! ;)
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4-10-2008 @ 1:32PM
Manman said...
I'm a pirate, I don't buy any games at all, I just play downloaded ones. It's awesome. I've got about 200 on my hard drive, and of those about 30 fit onto my flash cart. Quite a lot, but I don't play them all at once. At the moment in between my uni studies and my job I have hardly any time to play, but I'm slowly making my way through Phantom Hourglass, Elite Beat Agents, Picross DS, Simpsons Game and a few others. Next up, the Phoenix Wright series!
The money I don't spend on games anymore is money I can use for whatever entertainment expenses I want, such as liquor, books, going out with friends, so on. It's so great not buying games, I save so much money. DSTT is the best purchase I've ever made.
There, is that enough rubbing your noses in it?
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4-10-2008 @ 2:27PM
Author X said...
You wanna know how I spend the money I didn't spend on Picross, Taiko Drum Masters, and all the other games I pirated?
Well, for one, I spent it Apollo Justice, most of the rest goes to Wii games.
I download when I have to, but when I have money, I usually spend it on video games anyway - especially if it's something I specifically want to support. So there's your answer - all the money I don't spend on video games, I use to buy video games.
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4-10-2008 @ 2:33PM
Cory Anotado said...
As a game developer (although not a console developer. I make online games), I absolutely HATE people who pirate games. Guess what? Having games aren't a right. They are a privilege, or less so, a nifty diversion. I can understand not having enough money for food and stealing a loaf of bread, especially when you're well below the poverty line.
But, if you're like Manman up there, who doesn't care that the money from games goes to pay developers so they can make MORE games, I think you're scum. Stop fucking pirating games. If you really want games? You can pay for them like everyone else. You're not special.
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4-10-2008 @ 3:14PM
Author X said...
And, as an addendum, if you really want games and don't have any money, get a job. Quite a number of people insist they only download x y or z from the internet because they don't have any money with which to pay. But that's no excuse, because most people get jobs and contribute to the economy to earn the money they want for goods and services, and (blah blah, yay capitalism etc) and my point is, when you don't have money and want something, you should get money instead of stealing that something.
I know I'm being rather hypocritical, since I already admitted I download DS games, but at least I know the importance of supporting developers, and I do earn my own money to spend on video games.
4-10-2008 @ 3:49PM
hvnlysoldr said...
I want all pirates to put eye patches onto their avatars.
Huh what do you mean I have an eye patch on my avatar since the very beginning. That's ridiculous. I have glasses on my avatar.
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4-10-2008 @ 6:55PM
iruka said...
I'll admit that I download my games and use R4. But this is probably better than buying those fake carts in the market. If I wanted to pay for the games I play, I'd definitely save up for the original rather than give my money to those who pirated the games and put them in the carts.
And besides, I live in a third world country. My monthly salary could probably be just 1/4 of the average American salary. Games are really expensive here plus they're imported so they're more expensive.
Just a note, I'm also a programmer so I know the feeling of people copying my code or whatever so don't go flaming me. And I am planning to buy original games within the year ;) just let me set aside money from my low income. Waiting for Kingdom Hearts and Guitar Hero... ^___^v
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4-10-2008 @ 8:09PM
Pie Pants said...
The big problem with these "busts" is they always assume each game is a lost sale.
I've got a R4DS with a few downloaded games on it, for instance. Most of them I'd probably never have bought anyway, and those are the ones I've played once or twice then given up.
The ones I do play and enjoy, I usually buy as well.
Part of the problem where I'm from (Australia) is that retailers here are pretty much getting away with theft themselves. Take something recent, like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for instance. It's listed on the US EB Games site for $39.99, or about $43 australian dollars. The same game from a local store is $70.
Now I know shipping and import taxes will always add a bit, but $27? Come on.
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4-10-2008 @ 10:35PM
Brent said...
How's this for an argument? If it wasn't for an M3 Lite, I never would've bought a DS or the 10 games I now own. I'm not a big gamer, and the ability to try games out for free made it worth dropping the $150 for a new DS Lite. I never would've risked buying something like that for it to only gather dust after 6 months. A year later, and I love this thing. Every game that I've liked after the first couple hours I buy. I'll probably buy another 10 games in 2008. That's bout $1,000 of my money those hard-working people would never have gotten.
Nobody lost any money, so what's the harm?
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4-10-2008 @ 10:52PM
aliquis said...
The money? I'm very confident they didn't charged £6000 for it.
I think we can all agree that selling and buying pirated software are bad
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4-11-2008 @ 7:02AM
Jamar said...
I'll say why I pirate- it's the only way to get DS games in my native language (Chinese). The big game companies have all but forsaken the mainland Chinese market. The fan-translators do all the work and charge nothing for it, making it available online. Then Nintendo/Capcom/etc ride off their work, in a way.
Example- Capcom officially sold the Rockman EXE (Megaman Battle Network) series in only 3 regions- Japan/North America/Europe-Australia. China got screwed. After fan-translations of the first three games got around, guess what happened? The merchandising began. Official Capcom stuff (and McDonalds Happy Meal toys- ironically, they only gave away Forte(Bass) toys, I think; way to scare the kids away to BK or KFC for their next kids' meal).
Ugh. But whatever.
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4-11-2008 @ 7:20AM
Misty said...
I have an M3DS real. Where does my extra money go? Mostly, to games for the kids, or unimportant things like food and clothing.
We are a 'just past getting by' family. We aren't well off, but we have the occaisonal bit of money to indulge in things with. The kids both have grandparent-provided DSes. I got my partner one the xmas before last, and she and my girlfriend pitched in and got me a red and black one this past xmas (A color you can't yet get in Australia, so is extra special!).
The M3 lets me trygames beforeusing that modest splurgable money. Especially, it lets me test games out before giving them to my children, to make sure they are appropriate and playable; giving them a game heavy on reading is pointless. It also lets us play games together without having to buy multiple copies, which has been nice with things like Pokemon, where we already have two bloody copies in the house.
Plus, I can carry my library with me and not have to worry about losing one of the carts. I have a 2 gig flash card, which holds much more than I will ever need.
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4-11-2008 @ 9:06AM
Pizza Pasta said...
I think it's wrong to pirate brand new games but I have no poblem downloading club nintendo titles or games that are out of print or impossible to find.
I always end up getting ripped off when I buy an older game off ebay or from a used game shop. I spent $55 dollars on Tetris DS and it dawned on me that NONE of that money is going to Nintendo it's just going into the pocket of the ebay user that bilked me for it.
I should have just downloaded it for free. If piracy hurts the people that sell overpriced used games then I support it.
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4-11-2008 @ 11:03AM
Unsmartest said...
I have no problem or moral qualms about downloading games for the ds. So many games are straight garbage that if I were to actually pay for these steamers I'd eventually go on a killing spree taking out everyone who was behind the development of Crazy Pig.
The game industry is a whore beast who wants money. They rarely care about quality entertainment. When there is a title that is actually good I dont mind putting down some money for it, but how often is that like 2% of the time?
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4-11-2008 @ 11:15AM
Tamyu said...
Both my husband and I pirate... But we also buy games. LOTS of games.
The problem with the DS seems to be that for every decent game out there, 20 others are complete and utter trash. It may look nice in a magazine, but until you play it, there is no way to know what it`s actually like. (And don`t say "demo", because 99% of the games never have demos.)
Instead of hopping over to the game shop to blindly pick up a new release that we thought looked interesting, we pick it up on the net, try it out, and if we like it buy a copy to support the makers.
If we don`t like it, no real loss to anyone, as we wouldn`t have bought it anyway - and if the lack of an uniformed hype-only sale makes the designers put a little more effort into making something worthwhile in the next project, all the better.
I wouldn`t buy a CD without having heard part of it and liking it, just as I will not buy a game without knowing that it`s worth playing.
Even after we buy copies of the games we like, we still continue on with the pirated copies. Most of the games we`ve bought have never been removed from their cases. It just feels nice having them.
As for the money not wasted on games we don`t really enjoy... I don`t know where it goes. Possibly on weekly copies of Famitsu, books, and our son.
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4-11-2008 @ 11:26AM
mini keg said...
All of you complain about having no money to buy new games, and how expensive they are.... if you keep pirating them, the prices will only go up to accommodate for this......
I'm sorry you are families that are 'Just getting by' but I come from one of those myself... and I worked hard, took out massive student loans and went to university.... Plus I think a lot of that is bullshit.... What about all those people out there who are working hard that pay for their shit? what makes you so special? If you need to justify it to yourself that little Tommy wouldn't have shoes if you had to pay for this DS game, whatever, but no one else wants to hear your bullshit story as to why you steal.
Everyone I know who has pirated games is someone who can afford to pay the 30$ for a legal copy....
If you really want to try the game, rent it.
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