A pirated copy of F-1 Race by Whirlwind Manu.
Pirated games refer to licensed games that were pirated and released on other carts. Sometimes this term can often be confused with bootleg games despite the two being different. These are also not to be confused with cracks, which is software (including games) with the copy protection removed. Unlike pirated games, these aren't sold publicly. Piracy and pirated games have existed for almost as long as software itself and is still happening to this day. On this wiki, these generally refer to licensed games released on a physical format and being sold by actual distributors without the permission of the developers/license holders. These are most commonly seen in Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America. They are also sometimes imported to larger Western countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Mexico.
Overview[]
In countries where console manufacturers and publishers have no control over their products, pirated games were rather rampant. Publishers/distributors would generally take an existing game put it on a new cart/CD. They would then mass-produce these and release them for a cheaper price.
Contrary to popular belief, pirated copies of modern games are still being released to this day, mostly for PC games.
Cartridge-based systems[]
With cartridges, more often than not, the cart art is usually different from the official art, sometimes not even related to the game. Some of these carts may have the name either spelled incorrectly or the cart itself can be mislabeled. Sometimes these games are left untouched but they might also be altered in such a way to either change the title to something else and/or (more commonly) remove the copyrights. In rare instances, the copyright text is only changed to credit the company who made the pirated release and when the pirate release was made. In even rarer instances, the copyright changed to credit nonsense companies/people that don't exist such as a certain pirate release of Sega's unreleased Tetris port which credits a "Dr. Pepper Studio". This practice seems to still exist to a extent with web-based games. However, these modifications may trigger an anti-piracy routine that can render a game unplayable. (Notable examples include pirated carts of Ninja Gaiden and Shatterhand; certain Konami NES games also check for if their copyrights have been edited out, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project).
Most pirated cartridges use a 60-pin Famicom cart, but in some instances, they use 72-pin NES carts. Most of the latter is meant for regional variants of the NES, including the Hyundai Comboy and the Hong Kong version of the NES. Certain 72-pin carts are actually just 60-pin carts (sometimes the official PCB) with a converter inside the shell and an awkwardly rotated sticker. The same thing is common with Bootleg Games.
Some pirated carts have been re-translated into other languages, but these are often rare. Most instances of this are usually in Italy and with arcade or home computer games or in Russia. One notable publisher who has released re-translated pirated NES games is Waixing. This was a lot more common for games that didn't have English versions at the time such as the Pirate Pokémon Translations, and other instances such as Wonder Boy - Monster Land, Kid no Hore Hore Daisakusen, and Momoko 120%.
Most multicarts can be considered as "pirated carts" if there's at least one licensed game on the cart. Carts like these will also appear on some Famiclones. Despite the fact that Nintendo's hardware patents for the NES have expired, software patents have not which generally makes it illegal if a Famiclone is sold with one.
Disc-based systems[]
On the PlayStation and other disc-based systems, games tend to be released unmodified, except for local language translation purposes (mostly in Russia, although translated pirated games can also be found in the Middle East and Indonesia) or to include patches (released by warez scene groups) necessary to work around copy protection checks (in case of PlayStation, either anti-modchip/"Red Hand Protect" or libcrypt for PAL games). In regions where association football/soccer is popular such as South America and Southeast Asia, football games such as Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer series also often released with modified and updated rosters, often times containing club teams (both top-flight European leagues and/or local counterparts) instead of national teams. This practice continued on the Dreamcast (where discs are treated as MIL-CD), PlayStation 2, the original Xbox and Xbox 360 (see also XGAME), as well as the Wii.
On the PlayStation 2 in particular, pirated copies of modified games also spread to the Guitar Hero series (often with changed songs) and on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (with character and gameplay mods, usually originally designed for PC version of the game, installed).
Because these discs can be of any region, and because they are likely to lack disc-level authentication (such as wobbles on PlayStation and PlayStation 2 discs), disc-based consoles sold in regions where piracy is common tend to have a modchip preinstalled. For PlayStation in particular, mass-pressed pirated discs with no changes to in-game content are known as Hong Kong silvers, named after a small circular area on the back of the disc being silver instead of black as on genuine PlayStation discs, and their typical country of pressing.
Arcade games[]
In the 1980s, bootleg versions of arcade games often were hardware clones using compatible hardware components, as common CPUs such as Zilog Z80 or Motorola 68000 series were used. Some manufacturers would include a battery-based protection (referred as "suicide batteries" in arcade repair circles), such as Sega (System 16/18) and Capcom (CPS2, as well as CPS Dash for audio ROMs only) to mitigate this. Some arcade bootlegs feature modified features, such as certain Pac-Man bootlegs that allows Pac-Man to run faster by the press of a button, or Street Fighter II bootlegs such as Street Fighter II: Rainbow Edition that allows the players to change characters on the fly, among others. CPS Dash games such as The Punisher (with bootleg release titled Biaofeng Zhanjing) may feature audio replaced from a regular CPS1 game (in the case of Biaofeng Zhanjing, it uses audio from Final Fight) in backporting the game to regular CPS1 hardware.
Bootleg cartridges were also common towards the later life of SNK's Neo-Geo MVS system. Some of them were also modified to feature faster speed or to pre-unlock boss characters. Many of them end up on Pandora's Boxes once the ROMs were eventually dumped.
Even with modern arcade titles, which use Windows-based PC technology instead of proprietary hardware, being protected to prevent the games from being dumped to run on a home PC (or from a different board than it was originally assigned), bootleg arcade cabinets still exist. For games that do run the original software (such as Lindbergh-based titles, such as Operation G.H.O.S.T), the only thing separating these between the official cabinets are usually the labels. Other cabinets often simply run a console or native home Windows game, paired to a board that controls the coinage.
Pirated games and BootlegGames Wiki[]
Almost all pirated games on BootlegGames Wiki aren't and should not have their own articles as they're basically just licensed games on a different board and cart shell. Articles for these games most likely exist on Wikipedia and other wikis and documenting them here would be redundant. However, there are some exceptions to this rule:
- Bootleg hacks of non-bootleg games - Usually these change up the graphics enough and often pass off as something else which technically makes them bootlegs despite the original game being licensed. In the case of title hacks, these should be left for a general page listing all known title hacks for consoles. Hacks that are licensed by the original developer, but not the console maker such as Kiddy Sun in Fantasia or hacks of games for systems that don't have a licensing process like the Atari 2600 hacks by Suntek will also count.
- Translations of licensed games - This includes games that were originally in another language (usually Japanese) and are translated to another language and are then sold as pirated carts. Examples of this are the various translations done by Waixing, and the translations done for multicarts (or more appropriately), multitapes such as Nova Games which feature these along with "original" software.
- Pirated releases of prototypes - This includes licensed games which were pirated and sold before the game officially released and are (usually) based on leaked prototypes. These are a lot less common than bootleg hacks. Examples include the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Simon Wai prototype) and ST II' Turbo.
- Pirated conversions of games. This includes games that are converted to another system with similar specs. Examples of this include the MSX Conversions released for the SG-1000 and Master System. This also includes the conversions of Duke Nukem 3D and Rise of the Triad by Vector.
- Pirated releases featuring emulated game(s) - This includes pirated releases of games which use an emulator to play said games. These include PocketNES carts which contain emulated NES titles. The YJ Emulator which is used to release Genesis/Mega Drive games on GBA carts. SNES Station, which is commonly seen on pirated PS2 discs either as Super Mario Collection or simply SNES Station. Very similar to what happened with DreamSNES. The Sega MasterSystem Emulation CD was a homebrew Master System emulator which was later pirated as 100 luchshikh igr k pristavke Sega Mega Drive. The Dreamcast had many of these including already mentioned DreamSNES as well as a Genesis/Mega Drive emulator, a Gameboy emulator, possibly a version of MAME, and solo releases of Aladdin and Final Fantasy V.
External Links[]
- Pirated Games Museum - A wiki that documents all known pirated cart variations.