this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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How common was video game piracy in the 90s? (piefed.social)
submitted 2 weeks ago by SilentStriker@piefed.social to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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This is during the era when the N64, PS1, SNES, Dreamcast or Sega Genesis were popular. Games back then were released physically via disc or cartridge, meaning distributors or publishers would've implemented anti-piracy (like Lenslok) measures onto physical copies but some knew how to tamper with anti-piracy if they have a computer using other sources of capturing data (floppy disks).

Also, games at the time were 'simple' to torrent but with a catch (dial up was still a thing at the time meaning downloads could take a while if you have a PC). Discs were more straight forward than "torrenting" cartridges (unless you have connections with the manufacturer on smuggling circuit boards). Like with movies, games that came on discs were "torrented" through CDs by using a PC.

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[–] KaChilde@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

In Australia in the 90s, you would get your PS1 modded to play pirated discs for about $40, and then when your weird uncle came back from his third Bali trip of the year, he’d bring you about 100 pirated games and 1000 pirated movies that he bought for $10. I think I owned 3 legitimate PS1 games back then.

[–] cdzero@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah I remember it being very common here. I thought I was the odd one for not having a mod chip.