Author Topic: The fall of pirate game companies  (Read 3700 times)

Brn89

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The fall of pirate game companies
« on: January 13, 2018, 04:35:38 PM »
I've just been informed by someone that China's pirate game business could now cease to exist when apparently, China is now allowing its own people and businesses to use their own technology and pursue interests outside of their homeland, also given the evolution of technology in itself too, meaning that there's no real reason for them to do what they were infamous of making, from pirate games to weird-looking Famiclones. And other bootleg garbage. Another reason for this is that there is a cultural clash between it and several other countries right now (and I don't know what they are of precisely, probably of political matters). Since this, the people of China have moved on to other places in the world or of having business elsewhere, and thus leading up to the potential demise of them plagiarising stuff and all that. Of course, China doesn't have copyright laws as we all know but, this is the modern era and they've been doing this sort of thing since the 1800s, would you believe.

Even though China is slowly going through that phase and that not many places in the UK, US or elsewhere sell bootleg stuff anymore or have specialised outlets closing down, it's still big business over at Russia, Brazil and Mexico. So with the direction China is taking, is there any need for pirate games anymore?

I know this place has been pretty quiet and this might not be noticed but, I wanted to bring this up to all the people here, and maybe have their say on the subject too.
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Pepper-98

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The fall of pirate game companies
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2018, 08:14:10 PM »
i wonder if it's truly dying out or just the country changing with the times.  If there's still places that care about bootlegs then I doubt they'll be completely gone, just be less common and less of a crutch for them (I think I remember reading a while back that it was one of their biggest exports which is why they've let it run rampant as much as they did.)

Barver

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The fall of pirate game companies
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2018, 02:35:26 AM »
If we're talking about game development then that's definitely been dead for awhile now. The only people in China (let's not mix up with Taiwan developers, who afaik likely stopped doing things around 2002 or so) that were developing games were really Waizing and Nanjing for the Famicom, and I think they stopped making their own games going back nearly a decade now. Since then it's just been the West catching up to knowing exactly what games were made over there.

If we're talking general production and manufacturing of cheap multi carts and the like, I've heard you can't really find this stuff in any of the major cities in China or other Asian countries anymore. Modern gaming has been more embraced and no one is buying the ancient Famicom anymore, I guess.

It still surprises me there's some anonymous devs making some Megadrive things in Russia still. Surely there's like zero market for this stuff anymore. Gotta wonder what the motivation is.

Ninjinister

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Re: The fall of pirate game companies
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2019, 02:42:50 AM »
I know this is an old-ass topic, but I've been pondering this for some time now.

Who retains the "rights" to the original characters, programming, etc. after a pirate company goes under. Or are there no "rights" and it's all wild wild... er... east?

Like if you wanted to make a game with Hummer, Q-Boy, and Jacky Lucky and sell it on Steam, how bad would your ass get fried? Would anybody even give a shit?

jo19sh92

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Re: The fall of pirate game companies
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2019, 12:25:14 AM »
I mean overall, making "bootlegs" and "ports" and "demakes" are kind of dead overall, but at the same time, its not so much that it is dead, but instead that it is being created on a new platform, such as being created as Android games -_- It disappoints me to be honest, I really wish there would still be more bootleg NES makers, I would legitimately buy these games still.
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