I once bought a bunch of GBA games off eBay. It wasn’t long after receiving them that I realized they were all pirated. The logo on that back said: “Nintondo”. The construction was shoddy. The label wasn’t correct (as mentioned in article). The other funny thing were the boxes and instruction manuals that came with them. The instruction manuals were usually like 3 pages with HORRIBLY translated English.

My advice: don’t buy video games on eBay from anyone shipping from Hong Kong.

Digg it!

I even got a pirated PS2 game off of eBay once. Sometimes that 100% rating means nothing. Nowadays I usually don’t even really bother unless the seller is in the hundreds somewhere.

Rememeber that the original source was:
http://www.overpal.com/showthread.php?t=102

Why people do that kind of things? NDS piracy ufff… they must d*e

I was at a swap meet not too long ago and I saw a handful of pirated GBA carts. One of them had like 33 GBA games on one cart. It was obviously pirated, the booklet was awful and so was the overall packaging. I was curious if anyone out there has actually purchased one or not. I really like collecting random gaming things like that and even though there were a lot of games on the list I already own it kind of got me interested. But I didn’t want to spend my money and get burned on something that didn’t work. Anyone have any experiences with one of these? Did it work?

Those carts do work, but they don’t have the games on the cover. The games on the back show that most of the games are gameboy color or sometimes even NES games. There might be a few gameboy advance games though.

this reminds me of those gameboy cartridges that had 20-30 game son them, and the weird thing they were fine, they had a button on the top of the cartridge you press it to select the game, I even saw one that had 40 games !!!!!

^Really? I saw one that had 120 games. (No lie. I tried them ALL out too).

^Really? Usually those cartridges have a bunch of copies of the same game, only with a different name. So in total there’s less than a fourth of the games on the cart than they claim. And as stated, they’re mostly NES games with the occasional GB color game thrown in.

I have seen a 120 GB one too!

It was being sold at a dirty yard sell,

Watch out for www.portablegamestore.com. I bought a few GBA games and both were bootleg copies. Their site claims they are in Japan, but their distributor is in China. I didn’t know that until after I bought the stuff. With a lot of bitching and a PayPal dispute, they refunded my money — only after threating to call the cops on me if I didn’t return the games. (like the cops would do anything to me about $40 of illegal software They never admitted the games were bootlegs. Just claimed it was a “distribution error.” Right … They also asked me to remove my negative review on resellerratings.com (where they had a good review for some reason) and to stop posting bad comments about them in forums. Ha! That’s not going to happen.

The games were off color, too big for my gamboy slot and had corrupt save data. The boxes and labels also looked nothing like the US versions, even though they use the US box art on their Web site.

Buyer beware. If the price is too good to be true or it’s a rare, out-of-stock game, it’s not legit.

yard SALE.

not ’sell,’.

:( >_>

While I don’t feel too bad for bands who get burned by piracy, honestly, I think that those who pirate video games are the lowest of the low, and those who buy them are less than parasites. I am fully aware of how to go about getting all the free software, movies, and songs I could possibly want, however I choose not to because I respect the hard work and effort most developer’s put into their work, and I feel good knowing that my purchases are in some way making it into these guys’ and gals’ pockets. The only time I think it’s even slightly warranted is when a console has been ‘dead’ for a good, long while. So, yeah, pirate those old Atari 2600 or Genesis games from here to eternity. You’re not hurting anyone there, whereas pirating games for current consoles and handhelds only hurts honest, forthright consumers like myself, and the industry as a whole.

thrAsher

So you dont care if bands get burned, but you care when video game companies get buned?

Shut up.

“While I don’t feel too bad for bands who get burned by piracy, honestly, I think that those who pirate video games are the lowest of the low”

How is this not hypocritical?

If the guy selling me the cartridge was actually dressed up like a pirate (parrots optional) that would be cool. I might do it then. Wooden leg means instant sale.

Great, now people can determine if they got ripped off after the fact…not sure how this protects someone from a HK’er on eBay.

as a musician, I say i dont really care if people download any music i do, because i have a full time job for when it comes to money. now for people that solely make all their money off music, it might hurt them, but maybe they should just get a real job if they’re in that much trouble. most bands that do nothing but play music for a living probably make enough off of it to be comfortable, so obviously piracy isnt hurting them too bad. or something.

that being said, i buy 95% of my music.

i was in china, and you can get your games for cheap. well gba that is. but you have to be careful just look for that Nintondo on the back. and you straight. i bought some buy mistake that have nintondo and they work fine but there graphics are messed up..like the cartridge overheats or something…i dont know.

I’ve actually picked up three or four pirated GBA games off Ebay - because the first GBA game I got there was perfect and legit, so I took that experience onwards.

The next three all had save game problems and occasional crashes. Tactics Ogre and FIFA both won’t save - or more accurately, they WILL save, but as soon as you turn the GBA off, the save disappears. I tried a dispute, but by the time I’d received the games, the seller was gawwwwwwwn.

Got burned by piracy once, checked out the second game I got… The recent one, very recent, seems that she’ll gimme a refund. She’s in the US, at least…

ya theres lots of pirated games from China, cause i was visting my family last summer and in shanghai i got lots of gba games, and later i found out they were all pirated………….

dont buy video games from china…….

Gawd -

What are u guys whining about? I’d gladly pay 30 cents on the dollar for a pirated game. Video games are too expensive for my taste. You are paying for laods of advertising.

Yoshi, it bothers me more when a developer gets burned than when .50 Cent gets burned, let’s put it like that. I’m sure .50 or Christina Aguilera or who have you put a whole lotta work into their albums, but piracy doesn’t hurt them like it hurts some of these small-time developers, I’m sure. Plus, playing live and selling t-shirts makes most bands a good percentage of their loot, anyhow.

And play nice, little dinosaur. No need for ’shut up’.

I only purchase officially licensed Nintendo merchandise.

Fantastic article. Just the fact that you raised awareness within the community probably saved a ton of gamers some grief. I have some more preventative advice for ebay shoppers looking to pick up DS games: don’t bid on people with a private auction name (there’s no reason to do this unless you’re either a celebrity or a thief - and you’ll get bad customer service from both) and most importantly if you don’t see home made photos of the product and the seller has low feedback points and isn’t in the UK or USA you need to ask questions before you bid about authenticity. Making that papertrail via ebay will help you settle disputes later.

Ebay is like a “Cyber-Swap Meet”. You buy thing’s without even knowing the truth about it. My tip is: Never buy video games off of Ebay. Why? You just might get ripped off. Stick to Gamestop.

Pirated DS carts came out a long time here in Malaysia. You require flashing your DS, and it costs something like RM70-90.. Which is about USD23. So not worth it.

I once bought a used GBA game at EB games. Then when I got home I looked at the label and it looked weird then i noticed it didn’t say nintendo on the inside of the cartridge. I got pissed and went back to store and asked to exchange the game. I kept telling them the game was a bootleg but they just looked at me with question marks. So I got a legit copy of the game but those bastards put the bootleg back on the shelf to be sold again.

You’ll notice the serial numbers on the bttom white bar of label are improperly formatted.

The format usually follows like this.

NTR-ASTE-USA (American Megaman battle Network 5 DS)
NTR-AMTJ-JPN (Japanese Meteos)
NTR-AMCP-EUR (European Mario Kart)

The formatting however on the pirated carts is completey different, you cannot see it on the Nintendogs cart, but on the fake Jump Superstars cart, it is SZGD-50003-A666!

So there’s another thing you should definatly point out about fake carts.

Carlo, I bought a GBA game from Gamestop… Bootleg to the maxtreme.

I called Nintendo to see what they thought, and they agreed.

I was more excited about finding a copy than anything, so I was kinda peeved.

You should see what kinda boxes these DS carts come in.

Cheap printing. You can immediately tell that it’s a fake/pirated copy.

Will get pictures when I’ve got the time, abundance of them.

My bro bought one from the Pacific mall in Toronto. It had 4 GBA games and tons of NES games. A few months later the battery broke and now savedgames wont work on it. I told him not to buy it! geez

I recently purchased a used game cartridge from Amazon.com marketplace seller…it turned out to be a bootleg. Didn’t ask for a refund or anything in order to not upset the status quo.

It almost makes you pine for the days of the Nintendo Seal of Quality. Almost.

“While I don’t feel too bad for bands who get burned by piracy, honestly, I think that those who pirate video games are the lowest of the low.”

That’s pretty shallow if you ask me. I think the “lowest of the low” are those who make fake prescription drugs. If there’s anything in the “pirated” industry that should never be, it’s fake medicine.

This is why I was more comfortable with buying GameCube games online than PS2 or Xbox games. I’ve only recently seen pirated Cube games. It really took them quite some time to do that. Now I’m wondering about Wii games now that they use standard sized DVD discs.

A local used CD store carries games and when I was looking at their GBA selection a while back I noticed that one of their copies of Golden Sun clearly looked to be pirated. It was pretty obvious since they had two copies there with vastly different cover art. A quick peek inside the bottom easily showed that, yes, one was definately pirated (i.e. it lacked the copyright label on the circuit board… plus, well, I have the original at home). I politely pointed this out to the clerk since I’d been burned on pirated games on eBay before (twice! for the same damn game from two different, seemingly reputable sellers). As far as I’m aware they never bothered to do anything about it and still have it for sale at the same price as the legitimate copy.

i have an m3 perfect and flash card, so i dl all my ds and gba games!!! ITS ASWOMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Poor-quality printing of the label. - Companies are NOT printing the cartridge labels with a Lexmark inkjet, using the “medium-quality” setting.”

They are NOT? what do they use then?

;)

My Lost Magic cartridge’s sticker isn’t put on well, but it’s still an original. I got pissed at that and scared .

Fake medicine, is still medicine.

Rocket that around your launchpad a while.

And I’d like to address my first post, and say that piracy in all forms is deplorable, however as gaming is one of my primary outlets for entertainment, I find the rampant pirating of video games to me much more harmful than the habit of burning music. Hell, I’ve taken tons of music from the internet, but half the time if I find a band I like, I do them the service of buying their CD. And that’s your God’s truth.

Respect, kids, and common decency. It’s hard, but manageable.

You have to be an idiot to buy pirated games. just dl them for free heh

Nice guide guys, in the UK it is relatively accepted that piracy is okay, market sellers will often have pirate PlayStation 1/2 games.. and I wouldn’t be suprised if they have xbox games too.

Many people in England have their systems chipped and nobody really cares.

I imagine if the DS and Wii maintain popularity it wont be long before the same happens to Nintendo.

I am not a big fan of piracy, but I can’t say that I wouldn’t say no given the chance to try a pirated game if I knew the source was legitimate.. it’s not like I’d actively seek it but thanks for the warning.

I prefer to just import instead of getting angry at Nintendo of Europe’s delays. We still don’t have Electroplankton.

Anyone has a comparison between the actual boxes? If I buy from eBay I always buy new, so I won’t be able to see what the cart looks like…

In Australia its legal to have a chip in your system, just not burnt games. A guy in Sydney was sued by Sony. He won half the battle by claiming that a chip doesn’t burn games but allows you to play other area codes NTSC for PAL users e.t.c.. Of course he lost half the battle due to the fact that he WAS burning games!

Just… just don’t buy ANYTHING that involves China, I’ve had SO many bed expeirences…

D版的NDS GAME，only RMB 100

Originally British have no copyright consciousness…
http://www.yyjoy.com/yy/?p=842

Say not person of buy the Chinese merchandise, do not forget the NDS is made in china.

http://www.yyjoy.com/yy/?p=858
oh..shit..

^^ I translated that page and they don’t sound to happy about their images being reused and cropped without credit.

I got “Super Mario Advanced” on Ebay a while back. And i checked it now, it’s definately a bootleg. However, it plays just like a legit copy. My saved files don’t go away like the article suggests.

Anyway, thanks 4cr.

F*CK !
After reading your article, I’ve take a closer look at my Riviera game bought at portablegamestore.com. It’s a damn pirated game !

My saves are corrupted, I can’t even play the game.

After some e-mails, Portable Game Store seems to be trustworthy since they offer me to replace the pirated game with the original cart, argueing they’ve have changed their GBA games supplier.

Let it be know.

once a game is out of print and no longer avalible as a new item in local retail stores i say go for it
why?
because the companies already got their money, if they wanted to make more money off the title they would make more

those older hard to find titles, the only one your screwing is the guy trying to get double the retail value of a game because it’s rare
your not hurting the companies at that point
and anyone that says differently is just an idiot
the only exception is re-releases like greatest hits, but usually the originals arent that hard to find in the first place

but i do think that if you later find a copy at a reasonable price that you should fork out the money

to the flamers
i won’t ever be checking the replies to this post so don’t even bother wasting your fingers

I once bought a Gameboy Cart. from some market near me, it said “68 Gameboy Games!!” I bought it, put it in my GBC and it was just Contra, 68 times, each with a different colour scheme -_-
I went back, after argueing, I got fed’up and ended threatening to alert the authorities (I said ‘other stuff’ that made him give me twice the money back, w00t w00t..). Anyway, I’m glad 4CR made an article on this, everyone should be aware of pirated stuff, don’t do it because there’s bound to be atleast one error that’ll piss you off, and don’t buy pirated games because it’d be much worse.

Oh yeh…I remember my gran knew I loved my gameboy…and wen i was like 8 she bought me a gameboy version of pokemon crystal…It got worse those as the saves were buggered and everytime I got an item it wud come up with turkish crap then go f*ck…I was one bewildered 8 year old :p

FVCK all yall. Yeah thats right I said “yall”. Who gives a fvck. I pirate games everyday for a living. Yeah I get tons of cash for dem games. So fvck you bitches up dee a$s because you hate em. If your stupid as$ brain tells you to buy a game that might be pirated, then your sh!t head fvcking deserves it. I’m not even going to look @ the replies to this post you fvckers so waste your time typing up insults.

sounds like you need a girl frend. pirate games for a living sounds like you are a big nerd with nothing to do but sit on your butt and waste your time.
geek!

;)i bought a pirated gba game with 1001 games in 1 catridge, it was all really old games and it sucked, and it was soo expensive

I like hacks and pirates.