Disclaimer: This shall not be a thread about how to pirate games and people shall not provide any links about piracy to this thread about it.
Hi folks,
last week I remembered and summarized how much money I already spent on my 360 and remembered that this is more than what I spent before ever combined for all systems.
When I began to start gaming, I had consoles that used cartridges that were not possible (for us (my parents are completely remote to tech) and me (I was way too young) to be "hacked" or where you could pirate games. Second console was still cartridge (Genesis) which led to CD game systems. From then on, I didn't exactly pay for games anymore for a long time. Well, I somehow did because I had to buy writable CDs but due to being a poor guy back then I did buy them rather than buying the original game. This was the time when friends already had "high-speed internet" (dsl with 768k down) and the internet was a place of "legal crime", meaning you could download literally what you wanted via irc or soulseek or bearshare or whatever the distribution channel was (but iirc soulseek and bearshare released after 2000, I don't remember exactly).
Around '99 I also got my new PC which I also used for gaming, before that I used PCs more like a machine to learn on and to get used to. It was revealing to me as I now had the chance to experience emulation which means I spent a lot of time playing games I never bought, be it on systems I owned (because games were expensive) or systems I didn't own (because the system and the games were expensive :)). I used a Sidewinder gamepad from MS back then on my PC and although it sucked for fighting games, it was a good controller to play old classics.
Shortly after, I bought a voodoo2-card to "play" (pirate) games that were made for PC, aswell. I cracked Unreal so that I could play it without disc in drive and was a frequent visitor to the world of game copys (I guess people understand the reference, I don't want to post the url here). Even better, emulators like UltraHLE and epsxe were released which enabled people to experience games like Zelda:OoT or Final Fantasy 7-9. Why should I pay for the systems and games, hahaha! All the power needed is in my shiny looking grey (already turning to yellow) monster of a PC! Idiotic people who are paying for this gaming shit, pfff.
So my PC was my favorite gaming platform back then, it could do everything I wanted it to do and I had the possibility to play thousands of games for many consoles and for PC. One couldn't be happier.
Then I went to University and this stopped me from being a PC gamer (and mostly being a gamer at all) because I had to concentrate on studying and also to be able to study I had to work a lot so spare time wasn't really available.
When I was close to finish University I met a guy I knew before playing on a Nintendo DS. I told him I don't really have time for this anymore sadly and also don't have enough money to buy a system and games. He laughed and said "you don't have to buy the games. Buy the right cart, equip it with a micro-sd card and copy games to it" and my cheap ass gamer heart awoke! I don't know how many games I played on DS but it was a lot - In almost every second I had I turned the system on and played. But yes, again I didn't pay for the games and didn't even feel guilty for pirating games. In absolutely no way. I still don't really know how I managed to graduate in computer science but I did and got a good job. But more importantly, I finally had more spare time! My friends were playing on 360 back then and when I visited them for gaming sessions, I was surprised how good the graphics were and I really liked the controller so MS had won a customer (almost).
Of course I checked whether it is possible to pirate games on 360 but after reading of what I had to do and considering I also wanted to play online, I decided to go "full in" and actually buy games on a system. And I did, a lot. Sales here, sales there, dlc here, dlc there... Yeah, I spent a lot on this console. I won't say how much but it's definitely enough :)
I still emulate a game on my PC once in a while if I am in the right mood to do so. I have a Saturn USB pad which is perfect for emulation for games until 32-bit era. Sad story, I don't feel guilty for it. I did this so many years, it's like taking a shower to me (which should make me also feel guilty because of environment pollution and also doesn't...).
tl;dr
Yes, I confess, I was a cheap ass gamer. A pirate. I didn't support the industry, I stole from them. I am guilty. Not that I really feel guilty which is weird because I know I should feel that way.
So what about you? Did you ever pirate games? Emulate them? Do you still do it? Are you going to change your opinion on it? What's your opinion about it?
