We speak to authorities on video-game piracy — including everyone from well-known game hackers to anti-piracy officials — to learn how this isn’t something that merely impacts developers but jeopardizes the very strength of our industry.
In 2006, Stan bought his first Nintendo DS. He had absolutely no programming or hacking experience, but within a day, he was able to augment his new handheld with functions like the capability to play MP3s and movies-as well as dozens of pirated video games.
“I did some research through Google,” says Stan, who requests we don’t use his real name. “I found out there’s actually a lot of people with YouTube tutorials on how to do this stuff. It was actually extremely easy to learn everything.”
YouTube videos and advice on video-game forums showed him what to buy-like an R4 Revolution Flash cartridge-where to buy what he needed, and where to download the “homebrew” applications that run free (and illegal) copies of games. Since then, the homebrew community has grown with a proliferation of “how to” websites thanks to a core group of hackers.
The Nintendo DS is in no way alone in this; hackers have “cracked” virtually every other game device on the market. In recent years, the DS, the PlayStation Portable, and, more recently, the iPhone have been among the most cracked systems. It’s the hackers who take care of the nuts and bolts of cracking a device, and in some cases they make it literally as simple as clicking a button for the average person to hack successfully.
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