Console Wars III

Pirate Games

In the world of computers and software, pirates have been illegally copying and selling content and video games since they existed.

I'm not really going to talk about why people steal stuff, I'm more interested in the folks that bootleg video games or reprogram them for resale. That's stealing, but at the same time there's an intrigue with the black market of unlicensed, unauthorized stuff that gets made every day.Widespread copying of console games is common in areas where copyright protection is nonexistent. I'm looking at China and other parts of Asia. This ranges from simple hacks, blatant copies, and ambitious demakes.

Protective measures like lock out chips and copy protection have long been in use to keep people from copying content for resale or whatever else they would do with that information. Nintendo didn't have a lock out for the Japanese Famicom, and because of that, piracy is pretty crazy over in that side of the globe. They did make the NES with a lock out  chip that kept some developers from tinkering with unlicensed software. But still they got around that.

The code is broken down, and taken apart and people are able to deconstruct everything and put it back together. People are creative, and making software can either be a labor of love, or a strict business endeavor. Multi-carts with pirated software are now sought after as collectors items among some NES circles. Who wouldn't want all the Mega Mans on a single cartridge? I would.

Mega Man 1-6 Famicom Multi-Cart

That's awesome. Capcom didn't get paid for it, but that didn't stop people from buying them. Multi-Carts are a serious collectors niche, but that's not what I'm interested in.

That brings me to the 8-bit demakes.

Programmers basically take new games from advanced consoles and translate it for older consoles... in this case, the Famicom. I'm guessing because the Famicom and its clones have proliferated throughout Asia and the world enough that the technology to produce games and software for it is cheap. Or they assume that no one gives a crap about the Famicom anymore, and so there's little to gain from preventing that from happening. Or they just don't care about copyright.

Chinese Pirate Famicom version. 

Title Screen of Final Fantasy VII Pirate

What you get is the PlayStation classic, Final Fantasy VII, rendered down completely to play in a Famicom. The entire story is there, and the game plays surprisingly well considering how simplified it is. The intrigue surrounding a complete remake of this game has created a community that has not only translated the entire game into English, but they've also taken out the bugs, making the Famicom version of Final Fantasy VII quite... playable. This may be the exception though, because the majority of these games are terrible, contain bugs, and don't represent the game they attempt to copy. Buyers beware!

Diablo II Famicom Pirate.

Other Chinese demakes include: multiple ports of Pokemon games, Diablo, Tomb Raider, Chrono Trigger, Zelda, Everquest, and even World of Warcraft. Like I said, most of these games don't resemble their original counterparts, but they are kind of hilarious to play. I've tracked down roms of some of these games and they represent a unique niche of pirate cart ownership. They turn up on Ebay every now and then, and are snatched up by folks that love weird NES collecting.

World of Warcraft Famicom Pirate

I'm curious about NES demakes because the hip thing in video games now is to have that pixelated retro look. There are loads of indie flash games, iOS apps, and software that mimic the look and feel of those old games from the 1980's. People are nostalgic for that because those games were the foundation for modern video games. Playing those games on original hardware may sound impossible or stupid, but I think it gives the best representation.

I've looked into programming my own NES game for whatever reason, and it seems like a difficult thing to do for the average human. The original Japanese computers used to program most of those old games are obsolete and gone, and the software know-how is seemingly extinct as well.

Through some internet searching I was able to find a forum or two with information and ideas regarding making an NES game. A professor at Carnegie Mellon taught a class on NES programming back in 2004 and the final project was to make a playable game. (Bobrost.com). It seems that with proper knowledge of computer programming, or an adequate program that will do the hard work for you, a NES game isn't the impossible.

The blogs and NESdev site show that making a game from the ground up is still an effort. Taking that idea and making a game from the ground up makes some of those Chinese pirate games actually pretty spectacular. So what if they borrowed sprites and designs, and some of the music from other games? Making a semi playable 8-bit port of a more modern game is something of a feat in itself. My hat is off to them for that. I like demakes, because a part of me wishes that all those games I played back then played more like the games of today.

Think about it. Video games have come a long way. Developers now understand better what makes a game enjoyable, and things like plot, replayability, and controls have had years of tweeking since 8-bit games. Take all of that data and attempt to make a retro style NES game, and you have a recipe for success in my book. I would have totally liked to play something like WoW or Monster Hunter in 8 or 16 bit. How big could you get a game like that if you wanted to style it after a modern game? Could you make a 200+ hour game? What would an  8-bit Skyrim look like? Is it even possible?

Piracy is bad. Stealing intellectual property is bad. Sometimes piracy can lead to interesting concepts in game design. Especially for older obsolete systems.