Counterfeit retro CD games... Do they exist?

[Anthony1]

Here is my question. I've seen people have backups of XBOX or PS2 games, and these guys actually have freaking labels printed on them, and the games almost actually look like real games. If you aren't paying close attention to it, you could actually think it was a real game.


But anyways, what I'm asking is, couldn't somebody do that with a Sega CD game, or a Turbo Duo game, or a 3DO game, or a game for any system that doesn't need a mod chip? Hell, even the Dreamcast doesn't need a mod chip. Are people out there actually counterfeiting games and selling them on Ebay?

I don't see why not. The technology is there to turn a printable CD-R into what looks like a super rare version of a Turbo Duo CD game that goes for big bucks.


I'm wondering, are their counterfeit versions of Popful Mail floating around? or Snatcher? or any of the other Sega CD games that sell for quite a bit?


I think with todays current printing technology, and these printable CD-R's and DVD's that maybe people need to start examing their software pretty carefully to determine if they really have the "real McCoy" or if they've been scammed.


One of those things that make you go.... hmmmmmmm

[goatdan]

I have a few times received stuff that turned out to be counterfeit CD games. It's rather disappointing, as it is hard to figure out what to do. But they aren't that hard to spot.

The reason why counterfeiting games hasn't become a big issue is that it is pretty easy to tell a CD-R game from the real thing. The real things were pressed. The CD-Rs, as nice as you want to make them look, still weren't pressed. If you are looking carefully, it isn't hard to tell at all.

People can't press their own CDs easily. Pressing plants are EXTREMELY careful about what they press because it is their butts on the line to find out if everything is legal first. I'm a bit of an expert about all of this thanks to our Dreamcast publishing -- For those that haven't bought them yet, the games that we make are professionally pressed and packaged.

A pressing plant is not going to press copies of a game that they know is a counterfeit or they risk getting sued for millions of dollars. If they are sending through a project that has "Turbografx" on it and has a copyright date in the 90's, you better be able to prove you can do that first. Otherwise, the likelyhood of you getting it pressed is nothing.

The Dreamcast games that we did, that are completely unrelated to Sega other than the machine they run on and are legal still required a bazillion things to fall into place before they could be pressed. None of those would fall into place for a regular person. Even if they did, the person would have to pay a lot of money to get it done just right and for the quantity they were making, and if they were caught it would all be for nothing.

And could a regular person just purchase the equipment to replicate and do it themselves? It would be insanely doubtful that a person could afford it. There are a VERY limited amount of actual replicating places in the world, and most that you can easily get stuff from are very strict on their rules. Starting a new pressing plant would cost millions, if not billions of dollars.

So in the long run, I wouldn't be too concerned about it all. Just be sure to take a look at all of your disc-based games before you purchase them to ensure they are not CD-Rs.

Lastly, just as a note it is MUCH easier and harder to detect if you counterfeit a cartridge. In fact, there has been some sellers trying to pass off counterfeit 2600 cartridges on eBay in the past such as the Beagle Bros. games and so on. Thanks to how the 2600 carts were made, they are probably the easiest as you often have to destroy the label to see the game itself. Most collectors don't want to do that with an expensive game, so it makes purchasing ultra-rare 2600 games that were in standard casing (Activision, Atari, etc) a lot more of a place that could happen.

[soniko_karuto]

in mexico city they have this place that presses any disc for 5 pesos a piece. It ain't legit though.

[Querjek]

CD-i and 3DO games are extremely easy to duplicate as there is no protection on the systems (IIRC, at least).

[Sniderman]

My understanding is that Sega CD games are also horribly, horribly easy to dupe.

[Balusilustalu]

This was posted on www.videogameimports.com a while ago.

BEWARE OF COUNTERFEIT COPIES OF SAPPHIRE ON PC ENGINE ARCADE CD!!!!!!
Yes, unfortunately it's true; there are counterfeit copies of the very rare and expensive shooter GINGA FUKEI DENSETSU SAPPHIRE. We received 2pcs of the game today as a part-exchange from a regular customer (who I am sure does not know that they are not original). Upon opening the box, something just didn't look quite right. However, they were fully factory sealed with the little tear off strip, they had the spine card, which even had the little slant on the back as with all PC Engine spines. We haven't opened them but they appear to even have a registration card inside. Luckily, we had a used copy of the game in stock and could make a comparison, and it was only then that we could see that it was obviously a counterfeit game, albeit done extremely professionally! Points to look for include:

The orange colour (see the Arcade CD logos at the front, side and back) is a brighter shade in the counterfeit version. The original is slightly darker and is extremely lightly 'dotted' with with very tiny white dots. They are barely visible to the eye, but they are there. Looks like the counterfeiters were unable to replicate this.

The artwork on the front, of the girl, appears very slightly out of focus.

The most noticeable part is on the back cover, where there are pictures of the 2 Arcade cards. The counterfeit version is much more fuzzy looking, and the picture of the planet is unclear. With the picture of the the Arcade Card Duo, on the original version, you can see a very thin white outline around the part of the card with the artwork on it. On the counterfeit version, there is no white outline.

I would recomment everybody considering buying a new or even used copy of this game, to be extremely careful. Even if you are buying from people or business held in high esteem, they may be unwittingly selling you a counterfeit copy.

Quite worrying considering the kind of money this game goes for.

[Anthony1]

Yeah, that's exactly the type of thing I'm talking about. I would imagine that there would be certain PC Engine CD games that go for huge money. So if somebody can make a copy of one, and pawn it off as the real deal, then they could make lots of money doing that.

It's a good thing I'm not a collector of games, because I would be pissed beyond belief if I spent huge jack on a game that turns out to be fake.

[robotriot]

From time to time pirate copies of CD32 pop up on ebay, but they're usually not professionally made, just 1:1 copies without a cover and a handwritten title. The games don't have any protection of course either, it's not a big issue though as it might be with other games luckily :)

[Balusilustalu]

It is a bit worrying.
I'm an avid PC-Engine collector (and gamer I might add before I get flamed ) and won't shy away from the higher prices some games demand. Here is a french PCE website that has a page listing several 'pirate' HuCards.

http://sdicks.free.fr/Potins/PCBoy/PCBoy.htm

It would be great to have more of such resources that could keep buyers informed on what to watch out for...

[Poofta!]

the printing could never look identical to the original, so if they supply a half descent pic, you can tell. plus im not aware of any cdrs that have a white bottom and you cant see the burn lines on.

plus cdrs have a different code and usually an engraved company name on the inside circle of the cd.

[goatdan]

in mexico city they have this place that presses any disc for 5 pesos a piece. It ain't legit though.

No, they aren't pressing them. Before you can press a disk, you have to make a glass master. The way that it works is that the data is literally pressed into the disc and then the disc is sealed. The creating and the testing of the glass master takes about four hours by itself. If it was so cheap to press single discs, I know that CD production for low numbers wouldn't be as high as it is...

And just because you can duplicate a disc easily doesn't mean that you can find a pressing company that would do it. You can burn yourself copies of something all day, but you can't press them.

The only games that you could get pirated copy attempts at are the ones like Sapphire that are made from overseas, and that having been said it should be pretty easy to figure out because they would probably flood the market with them, as they would have made a bunch of copies and would want to make a lot of money quickly. That should be a sign...

[fishsandwich]

It's not so much of a worry for games on the Dreamcast or Sega CD IF the game is TOTALLY COMPLETE. To reproduce the instruction books and back inserts would cost a pretty penny, especially to the point where no one could tell... eat up all your profits right there.

:/

[Balusilustalu]

One does wonder when previously nearly unattainable titles suddenly become widely available. Circus Lido for instance used to be extremely hard to come by and went for many hundreds of $$ when a copy did surface. Nowadays you see them quite often on eBay and regularly they sell as Factory Sealed. Dust cover, instructions, registration card, plastic Hu-sleeve, the lot...
How can one know if this is because a few old forgotten about boxes have been found on a dusty shelf in a Tokyo warehouse somewhere or if it's merely the efforts of dedicated pirates?
I'd love to compare one of those fake Sapphires with the real thing.

[Bratwurst]

ATTENTION ANTHONY1

Just for today in the last hour it seems like you have made 5 new threads in the Video Gaming forum, in addition to several of your old threads receiving a bump from yourself for some inexplicable reason. While I am A. All for free speech and self expression and B. occaisionally appreciate your sexy, sexy ramblings (because I picture you in sandles with socks while you write) I nontheless opine a proposition for your future endeavors:

Bundle up all of your errant thoughts for the day or a given week, then squeeze it into a bitter little ball of compressed conversational topics. Then post that ONE, SINGULAR thread as your regular Anthony1 newsletter. Please.

Yours,
Sausage Baby

[Anthony1]

ATTENTION ANTHONY1

Just for today in the last hour it seems like you have made 5 new threads in the Video Gaming forum, in addition to several of your old threads receiving a bump from yourself for some inexplicable reason. While I am A. All for free speech and self expression and B. occaisionally appreciate your sexy, sexy ramblings (because I picture you in sandles with socks while you write) I nontheless opine a proposition for your future endeavors:

Bundle up all of your errant thoughts for the day or a given week, then squeeze it into a bitter little ball of compressed conversational topics. Then post that ONE, SINGULAR thread as your regular Anthony1 newsletter. Please.

Yours,
Sausage Baby

I must admit that I've done way to many freaking post recently. Sorry bout that. It's more by accident than anything else.

[goatdan]

It's not so much of a worry for games on the Dreamcast or Sega CD IF the game is TOTALLY COMPLETE. To reproduce the instruction books and back inserts would cost a pretty penny, especially to the point where no one could tell... eat up all your profits right there.

You're wrong. The disc is by far the HARDEST item to reproduce correctly because:

a) You have to go through a pressing company to get the discs pressed
b) You cannot press discs on any machinery that is obtainable by the average Joe

I could go out and purchase a Laser printer for about $500 and attempt making reproductions off scans and / or copies of the packaging, but it would cost me MILLIONS to get the material to properly press a disc.

Yes, there are some pirates in China that have purchased and use machinery like this -- but they would rather bother with stuff they can get a guaranteed profit off immedaitely -- DVDs, new games, etc. I can't imagine they would take the time to make a run of perfectally identical games.

Dreamcast games also would be EXTREMELY easy to spot as fakes, as you cannot get your hands on real GD-ROMs to use. You would have to use a CD, and it isn't that hard to figure out the difference.

[dj898]

blank GD-ROM do appear and on Assember forum someone was selling thos from spindle...

[ClassicGameTrader]

I have alot of intrest in this topic ALOT. But I was thinking more along the lines of translating games or using translated roms to bring out games in the us that never existed. I got this idea while playing Front Mission Gun Hazard. I thought, how hard would it be to completely reproduce the instructions, box and cart? Then I thought about FF5 and all the others like SOM3. Now if somebody started selling those, professional looking and all, I would be the # 1 customer.

[Charlesaway]

Actually IIRC, those were really more like blank GD-R's, in that they were one use, for prototype and test discs.

Pressed GD-ROM's are probably produced the same way as glass masters for CD-ROM's.

FWIW, I have about a dozen 3D0 games that are pressed pirates, and they range from obviously pirated games to nearly legit looking ones.

[goatdan]

I have alot of intrest in this topic ALOT. But I was thinking more along the lines of translating games or using translated roms to bring out games in the us that never existed. I got this idea while playing Front Mission Gun Hazard. I thought, how hard would it be to completely reproduce the instructions, box and cart? Then I thought about FF5 and all the others like SOM3. Now if somebody started selling those, professional looking and all, I would be the # 1 customer.

And at the same time, the companies doing it would have their rear ends handed to them on a platter by the DMCA and whichever company they stole the material from. This is a very serious thing, and I know firsthand how much companies care about this.

People had been doing this with Atari systems because Atari doesn't/didn't really care. Now, they have nicely put an end to that. Nintendo, Sega and especially Sony will not tolerate that I'm sure.

Actually IIRC, those were really more like blank GD-R's, in that they were one use, for prototype and test discs.

Pressed GD-ROM's are probably produced the same way as glass masters for CD-ROM's.

Yes. I'm extremely surprised that it seems that no one is grasping the difference between a burned game and a pressed game. The difference is quite significant.

I happen to know the factory that did the GD-ROM pressing for the Dreamcast in North America. They were the only one equipped to do so, and they have since dismantled the ability to press games. You can burn a fake onto a blank development GD-ROM, but you sure as hell aren't going to get a pressed GD now.

And yes, GD-ROM glass masters do get made in the same way as far as I know.

FWIW, I have about a dozen 3D0 games that are pressed pirates, and they range from obviously pirated games to nearly legit looking ones.

I'm going to make a guess here - they were imported copies of the game pirated during the console's lifespan, not recently. Like I said, these companies are interested in a quick bang for their illegal buck, not one that will trickle in with a lot of selling. An pirate company stands to make a lot more off a newer console game than a few for a older console. There have been pirate carts released for just about every system already during the lifespan of each console. The Beagle Bros. carts for the 2600 as well as others, various NES carts, Dragonball Z for the SNES, and what I assume to be your 3DO games above. Most of these games were produced in China because the copyright laws there are pretty much non-existant.

After the factories close down, you really don't need to worry about counterfeits -- except for the ones that were released during the life of the console. And heck, some of those become more collectable (I hold onto some NES and SNES pirates just because I think they are interesting). But any collector worth their salt should be able to detect a "modern" pirate on a burned disc and with crappy inserts.