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Reader Comments (13)

Posted: Mar 26th 2009 6:06PM rockies123 said

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Right now ebay is flooded with pirated copies of ds games, which makes me kinda sad. For one, it drives out local seller by offering the game at a lower price resulting in unhealthy and less variety market for the ds games.

Secondly, when i buy ds games (new or used) i normally resell it on ebay if i find it not worth keeping as a part of my collection but i was shocked how low these pirated games have been driving the equilibrium prices to. What makes me more sad is that these sellers (mainly from china or hk) keep on getting positive feedbacks with good reviews by buyers, who apparently had no idea that they're buying a pirated copy.

Posted: Mar 26th 2009 8:34PM glugalump said

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I feel so smurfn' special to have had my smurf question smurfed first!

Smurf!

Posted: Mar 28th 2009 8:40PM (Unverified) said

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id Love to see the following come out 4 the dsL:
BATTLETOADS
TMNT
FATAL FURY
Crystal castle

what about these??

Posted: Mar 26th 2009 10:06PM (Unverified) said

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I bought Zelda Phantom Hourglasss and Electroplankton off ebay from two different sellers. Both turned out to be bootlegs. The thing is, they look pretty legit. Main tip off is the manuals actually contains review for the games. Which is kind of funny, you read the manual and it appears to be slamming the game.

Anyway, I was annoyed. If I had wanted to pirate the games I'd just use my dstt and piratebay. From now on I only buy DS games from Amazon.

Posted: Mar 27th 2009 7:44PM (Unverified) said

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It's worth pointing out that Amazon has a massive bootleg problem too. Amazon is a hub for many vendors, not all of which are held to any reasonable account for what they sell. It's like ebay, but with a false expectation that you are getting legit product. I'd avoid both ebay and amazon for video games (especially imports) and anime.
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Posted: Mar 26th 2009 10:52PM rockies123 said

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A few things to look up for when buying DS games on ebay,

- seller location. no offense, but almost all pirated copies come from either hong kong or china. Or from a North American seller who bought a pirated copy in the first place. Almost all of these sellers offer free shipping. Be very aware, i bought a pirated Rune Factory when i first started buying games on ebay more than a year ago. Naive me.

- no mention of ORIGINAL in the item description

- no photos of the actual item

- if there is a photo of the actual item, a white, see through casing is almost likely a pirated. From my experience, all DS games are in black casing.

- almost 100% positive feedback, but NOT 100%. If you dig through the seller's feedbacks, you'll find one or two smart buyer (out of 200) who left negative feedbacks pointing to the fact that the game is a pirated copy.

I hope this helps. If you accidently bought a pirated one, ask and insist for a refund! And throw away the pirated copy so that no one would fall victim to it again (if the seller doesn't ask to return the item). I really dont want pirated games spreading among north american gamers on ebay like a virus!

Posted: Mar 27th 2009 3:30AM (Unverified) said

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Good tips :)

All of my DS games are in white see-through cases, I think it's how the European ones are packaged?
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Posted: Mar 27th 2009 10:16AM rockies123 said

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No problem, it's my pleasure to share it with others. As i said, it is based on my experience that the casings are always black. I've never been to europe so i woulnt know about the european version :( Is there any european reader that can confirm this?

But, even if the european releases are released in those see through casings, how come all the stocks are in china or hk??
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Posted: Mar 27th 2009 10:43AM Unvrfd said

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My EUR cases are also semi-translucent white
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Posted: Mar 27th 2009 5:32PM (Unverified) said

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To speed up the trawling through all the pages, just type .au after the .com, which will send you to the Aussie site to view the guy's profile. On the Aussie site there is a drop-down menu you can use to set the period you wish to see feedback from, then you set it to twelve months, and choose negative and neutral (some people don't really care as long as the pirate copy works) feedback only.

~Esposch
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Posted: Mar 28th 2009 1:20AM suade94 said

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Any idea on how to give direct feedback to game developers and publishers? All I find are blogs, forums, or customer support messaging. I've been searching sites like Activision's and haven't found a way to let them know my disapointment that Modern Warfare 2 won't be on Wii. I know it was a long shot, but I really enjoy World at War and I was holding out that WaW would be sucessful enough on Wii for Infinity Ward to put Modern Warfare 2 on Wii. I haven't even been able to find a way to let Nintendo know I'm bothered that I can't get DLC for games like World at War. I'll put it on an SD card, I don't care. Have any ideas how to contact these companies?

Posted: Mar 29th 2009 3:20PM (Unverified) said

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In Europe, ALL cases are in whiteish see-through plastic. They are also a little bit bigger than the american ones.

Regarding spotting fake games, look this over:
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/06/13/spotting-pirated-nintendo-ds-carts/

Smurf

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