So this weekend myself and my wife went to go visit her mother for the weekend in Smallville (aka Klerksdorp, North West Province) and I found this rather large sign happily sitting on a wall as we entered the small city. I decided to snap a quick photo with my phone so excuse the quality.
Wow! I thought. Why even bother being careful about piracy anymore? Just put a huge sign up to advertise that you can help people pirate games. It’s actually disgusting that businesses like this get away with doing things like this so openly.
You may think it’s irrelevant in the whole scheme of things, but if you do I would strongly disagree.
How many small towns are there in the world? A ton. All of them combined (especially in America) probably make up a huge amount of business for the gaming industry. With many small towns promoting piracy so brazenly it only makes you wonder how much money is not going back into the gaming industry.
Isn’t it so nice that they even used an official Playstation logo and everything.
Last Updated: September 8, 2008
Syph1n
September 8, 2008 at 12:09
Dude forget small towns. There is a place in centurion. Next to a big woolworths advertising mods for ps2 and xbox also with a huge sign outside advertising it
Lupus
September 8, 2008 at 13:00
There is no fear in this country, even one of the now ex dealers on the 360 forum was a pirate. Sold legit and illegal games.
LazySAGamer
September 8, 2008 at 13:12
ex-dealer… would this be Joker or someone more recent?
alphav1za
September 8, 2008 at 13:17
These oaks got the asses coverd.
Have you read their disclaimers???
Crazy tell ya.
Lupus
September 8, 2008 at 13:18
It was Joker, not to sure how long ago he was removed.
LazySAGamer
September 8, 2008 at 13:25
Um, unfortunately Joker007 died in a car accident about 18 months ago I think.
Lupus
September 8, 2008 at 13:29
I did not know that.
jak
September 8, 2008 at 19:24
I am suprised the PS3 has lasted so long and hasnt been hacked yet!
Fudzy
September 8, 2008 at 21:32
I’d be interested to see if South Africa has any legislation regaarding the selling of hardware/software that allows users to play “backed up” games on their consoles.
Milesh Bhana
September 9, 2008 at 00:56
i think we have those laws. The problem is that we just don’t have the manpower to enforce it. You keep hearing storing about cops doing a blitz on drivers searching for contraband (copied CDs). Do you actually know anyone who’s been caught ?
We’ve got murder, rape, corruption and poverty to worry about.
Milesh Bhanas last blog post..skate [360]
Fudzy
September 9, 2008 at 07:43
I agree there’s laws to protect copyright material I just dont think there are laws to make the ability to play those games illegal. . Maybe an investigation can prove me otherwise.
LazySAGamer
September 9, 2008 at 07:59
You are 100% correct..
It is not illegal to mod your Xbox, PS2, PS3 or anything else… However it is illegal to own pirated games or movies.
The console makers keep trying to make it illegal to mod the hardware but since you own the hardware there is very little they can do to stop it.
ewie
September 9, 2008 at 08:52
And that is why in the long term microsoft and co
are moving to DLC, they know they can not win the
piracy battle on physical disc so they move to DRM
where they are still in controll.
BTW – rumours have it that the PS3 is already
able to play games from the hard drive that have been illegaly copied.
It is all good and well Microsoft allow play from hard drive – but to still alow the disc in the tray is short sighted, they could verify the disc every few days if required.
On xbox 1 that was the best reason to have it modded, to be able to copy your game to the Hard drive and play it from it.