The absolute worst thing that can ever happen to a collector! Fake games, pirated games, or bootleg games, whatever you prefer to call them, they’re all bad. Thankfully, there are plenty of simple tips to have in mind when looking for a game’s authenticity!
Game Hunter 03: Spotting Fakes
09
Feb
brandonberry
02/16/2013 at 4:13 pm
I accidentally bought a pirated version of Pokémon Ruby for the Game Boy Advance from a pawn shop. I have a few pictures of the cart and the inside after opening it. The battery doesn’t save and the DS games do not recognize it when it’s plugged in the GBA slot on the DS (probably partly because the save file doesn’t save because of the battery, but it could also be because it’s a pirate). It was a gift for my now wife a few years ago, and since she never checked it because she was backlogged with games, it wasn’t checked until just recently.
jsicktheslick
02/16/2013 at 5:27 pm
I’m sorry to hear you accidentally grabbed a fake game! That’s not the first time I’ve heard of pirated Pokemon though: the more popular a game is, the more likely it will get pirated. And on top of that, making pirated replicas of cartridge based games is much easier to do than disc based games.
I’ve also heard of some pretty crazy things happening with specific pirated versions of Pokemon. You should take a look:
http://tinycartridge.com/post/866743831/super-creepy-pokemon-hack
martianoddity
02/25/2013 at 3:44 pm
That’s a great and useful topic you covered there. As you say, cartridge based games are much easier to replicate, and due to their popularity you can find abundant copies of them, boxed and unboxed, even in regular video game stores. I say, if the cardboard box is glossy, don’t buy it.
If it looks pale, don’t buy it. If the print doesn’t look sharp but a wee bit blurry, or shows pixels, don’t buy it.
A great GBA “spot-the-fakes” guide: http://caggames.weebly.com/how-to-spot-a-fake-pokemon-gba-game.html
Though I don’t agree with the author that every purchase outside of the US is risky business. That’s bollocks.
Buying items from Scandinavia, the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Austria and Italy should be safe to do. Only thing you’ve got to watch out for is that some countries frequently publish games in their own native languages due to bad knowledge of the English language. In Scandinavia and the UK this shouldn’t be a problem, but a good amount of games in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, and even from countries like Poland in the East, have their respective languages and usually no way to choose to play in English as it isn’t seen as necessary.
jsicktheslick
02/25/2013 at 4:53 pm
Good points about game cases giving away the legitimacy of the game itself.
And I’ve rarely bought games outside of the US. Not because of fear of them being pirated, but because of shipping rates more than anything else!
martianoddity
02/27/2013 at 2:37 pm
The same reason I rarely buy games from the US. From Asia the shipping tends to be kind of cheap, but from the US, UK and Japan the fees tend to get steep.