Raids in Mexico seize 28,800 pirated games

by James Ransom-Wiley on Mar 17th 2008 10:00PM

There's a gritty side to Mexico's booming game industry, shown today as the ESA celebrated the efforts of Mexican law enforcement. 500 officers from the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) and the Agencia Federal de Investigacion (AFI) teamed up to knock on a few doors down in Mexico City's 'notorious' Tepito district. By the end of the day, four pirate hideouts and three booty stashes were raided, netting roughly 290 DVD/CD burners, 28,800 illegal copies of games and more than 900,000 game cover inserts.

"Mexico is an important market for ESA members due to the enormous popularity of entertainment software," said Ric Hirsch, senior vice president for Intellectual Property Enforcement at the ESA. "Unfortunately, Mexico also has an alarmingly high rate of game software piracy that by our estimates reaches 88%." Sounds like those federales have a few more doors to knock on.

Source

Tags: afi, esa, mexico, mexico-city, pgr, piracy, tepito

Reader Comments (53)

It's crazy but people pirate games and movies like crazy in Mexico. Everytime I am down there, there are tons of little tents set up with nothing but DVD's and Games. DVDs are like 3 bucks a piece and games are usually less than 10 dollars unless its a next-gen title. I asked my uncle one time why don't the police do anything and he told me that basically these people pay the cops to stay in business. If you have money in specific parts of Mexico you can do anything.

Actually prices are not that bad in Mexico. Many people don't consider the fact, that prices in the US are tax-free, but in Mexico all already include taxes. Considering there is a 15% sales tax in Mexico, a $60 game should be $69. Considering the current exchange rate and buying your games at the most expensive (prices vary a lot depending on where you buy) you can get a $60 game for around $75, and buying somewhere else, still legally you can get games for around $70. And if you go to questionably legal places (but still buying original games) you can go as low as $65.

What really pisses me off is that there's no control over prices. So for example, right now, if you want to buy the new Smash Bros you'll probably end up paying the same you would pay for a new Xbox 360 or PS3 game even if Wii games are $10 cheaper in the US. The same thing goes for any game that has any sort of hardware included (Guitar Hero, Rock Band), just because it has more than just a game the price goes waaaay up.

In Brazil there's even more piracy than in Mexico. All my friends have modded Wiis and Xboxes. I don;t blame them, as GTA 4 is retailed here at R$ 249 or about US$ 150 at current exchange rates

Previous 50 Comments