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Topic: Tons of Pirated DS Games on Ebay

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Slapshot

So I upgraded one of my DS's to the DSi when it came out and did something I usually dont. Buy newer games online on ebay. After dropping 130 bucks on the DSi(trade) and got Rhythm Heaven too I figured my wife would kill me to go out and buy more games at full price so I bid and won Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars and Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. Got them in, popped them into my DSi and "Error". DSi will not play them. Why? Well after tearin through the internet I found many people with my problem. The DS/GBA cartidges coming out of Hong Kong are freaking fake. Pirated software that looks very similar to the real thing, hell it even has the Nintendo stamp on it. It works in the DS but not DSi and Im glad Nintendo found a way to stop this. I payed for them so yes Im playing them on my DS and just taking it as a lesson learned. It really shames me to see this. I waited to buy Mario and Luigi until I got my DSi on purpose and cant play it on it now and I payed like 25 bucks for it. Just a warning to you guys that may not know this. Dont support the piracy.
(Oh and its not just these games either, my brother bought a PS3 controller form HK and its also an dang near exact replica and its fake also, so just dont support this crap, especially if you call yourself a gamer. The developers have mouths to feed just like we do, not to mention bring us our valuable entertainment as well)

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Wiiloveit

NEVER buy ANY Game Boy or DS games on ebay, since they are more than likely to be fake.

Wiiloveit

Slapshot

Dont plan on it again that is for sure.... Just dont want anyone else to make that same mistake Ive made.

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theblackdragon

never say never to buying DS games from eBay... there are definite warning signs to look for (is it listed from HK and/or way cheaper than other sellers are listing it for? does the seller have a freaking ton of an out-of-print game listed for sale? are they offering to mark it as a 'gift' so you can get through customs without potentially having to pay, do they refuse to provide actual pictures of the game/case itself when asked via message to seller, are they telling you the game they're selling is the US version but the box shown is marked with a PEGI or CERO rating, is it the wrong box-art entirely (a prototype version that was not used in the end or something marked with a video game website label), etc. and so forth)... if you've got a phat or lite, there's a good chance they'll work, but apparently Nintendo fixed the DSi so that they won't.

i have bought games from eBay that have been perfectly legal copies. as always, ymmv, and buyer beware, so you can get some decent deals there as long as you're careful and alert. anyway, have you tried contacting the seller to get your money back? some of those jerks will do anything to keep you from ratting them out to eBay (not that eBay will do anything about it), including giving you a refund.

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odd69

this is new to me sorry to hear about that.i can't believe people will go that low for money.

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ReZon

For US buyers, just don't buy outside of the US. Also, request a picture if a stock photo is given, often times the box or the cartridge label can give it away.

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warioswoods

theblackdragon wrote:

... some of those jerks will do anything to keep you from ratting them out to eBay (not that eBay will do anything about it)

Ebay should do something about it; they block the sales of all flashcarts / homebrew devices when they find them, so why shouldn't they ban users who are consistently putting up falsely produced / pirated games? That's even worse than the former. I would certainly try to report the user to Ebay, say that their games are pirated, illegitimate copies, and see how it goes if they hopefully keep getting these same reports from other angry buyers. It's worth a try.

EDIT: Also, certainly don't rate the seller until you try the game out and see that it's legitimate, so that you can at least give them the lowest rating and warn other users of the fake games in your text comment.

Edited on by warioswoods

Twitter is a good place to throw your nonsense.
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The_Fox

warioswoods wrote:

theblackdragon wrote:

... some of those jerks will do anything to keep you from ratting them out to eBay (not that eBay will do anything about it)

Ebay should do something about it; they block the sales of all flashcarts / homebrew devices when they find them, so why shouldn't they ban users who are consistently putting up falsely produced / pirated games? That's even worse than the former. I would certainly try to report the user to Ebay, say that their games are pirated, illegitimate copies, and see how it goes if they hopefully keep getting these same reports from other angry buyers. It's worth a try..

Actually, eBay will do something about it if they recieve enough complaints about illegal copies being sold. True, they have to see a large number of people file a complaint against a seller, but it happens.

Edited on by The_Fox

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theblackdragon

The+Fox wrote:

warioswoods wrote:

theblackdragon wrote:

... some of those jerks will do anything to keep you from ratting them out to eBay (not that eBay will do anything about it)

Ebay should do something about it; they block the sales of all flashcarts / homebrew devices when they find them, so why shouldn't they ban users who are consistently putting up falsely produced / pirated games? That's even worse than the former. I would certainly try to report the user to Ebay, say that their games are pirated, illegitimate copies, and see how it goes if they hopefully keep getting these same reports from other angry buyers. It's worth a try..

Actually, eBay will do something about it if they recieve enough complaints about illegal copies being sold. True, they have to see a large number of people file a complaint against a seller, but it happens.

in my experience, the seller i had bought from was suspended about five days after I made the purchase (that was when i started to get worried, my suspicions finally got the better of me, and i started to research DS piracy, which i hadn't known existed at the time i made the purchase). since the seller was suspended, I had no way of leaving feedback nor of removing that auction from 'My eBay' as something I had to leave feedback for (which irritated me). When I received my game, after having read something about Nintendo raiding an R4 seller's (or manufacturer's? i can't remember exactly) warehouse in China (or HK, again, i can't recall the exact specifics at the moment), I decided to check and see if Nintendo had some kind of piracy-reporting form on their website, which they did, and I filled out accordingly. In an attempt to give them every scrap of info I had on the seller, I checked the auction page i had won again, and lo and behold, the seller was back, their eBay store still as full of fishy or pirated games as ever.

I still reported them (their warehouse address was on the package sent to me, as well as a contact number and blah-blah-blah) to Nintendo, and I left them bad feedback (the item was indeed advertised as genuine, i double-checked the auction info before reporting it counterfeit), but even a week after that they were still up and selling their games. I just checked the seller again now out of curiosity, and it seems they're no longer selling pirated games, at least, but it still gets me that eBay had suspended them and then let them back on not a week or two later, still selling the same stuff. who knows how many others they burned before they finally stopped?

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warioswoods

@theblackdragon

That is unfortunate; hopefully they eventually got what was coming to them. You certainly took all the appropriate steps.

I hope the DSi's illegitimate-copy protection is robust enough not to be easily cracked by future game copiers. If it at least lasts a year or so, that should help to put some of these people out of business, since every DSi owner to which they sell a game can potentially report them.

Twitter is a good place to throw your nonsense.
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Knux

Wiiloveit wrote:

NEVER buy ANY Game Boy or DS games on ebay, since they are more than likely to be fake.

I buy a lot of stuff from eBay. I even bought my Wii on eBay! But piracy is not cool at all!

Knux

irken004

SuperSonic1990 wrote:

Wiiloveit wrote:

NEVER buy ANY Game Boy or DS games on ebay, since they are more than likely to be fake.

I buy a lot of stuff from eBay. I even bought my Wii on eBay! But piracy is not cool at all!

yea i got my DS lite web browser from ebay and it was legit
(btw i added ur codes already)

Turbo_Genesis_64

I bought a new copy of Tetris DS from China on eBay. It was a gift and it didn't seem cheap and yes it works.

The game is not available in the States anymore other than the second hand sellers who rip people off with their inflated prices.

Edited on by Turbo_Genesis_64

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greyelephant

I made the mistake of buying DS games from Hong Kong, China. I wanted a copy of Super Princess Peach for my daughter. As soon as the game came in the mail, I knew something was wrong. The instructions looked like they were photcopied (sideways instead of side to side), the box was clear, and no wrapping. So everything seemed fishy. However, the game worked fine, until my daughter came to me complaining that every time she would go down a warp pipe on a certain level, the game would lock up. Sure enough after doing enough home research I found out that the game was most likely counterfeit. I contacted the seller and he told me to ship it to him and he would send a new one. A few days later he was banned from Ebay. So I'm stuck with a bogus game.
For the record, I ended up buying another copy. A legal copy this time.

What's scary for me is to think that some of these games are going to wind up being sold as used at Gamestop. There's no real way of telling if there fake or not.

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rodoubleb

Don't buy outside of North America, but even then find out how to spot the fakes and ask the seller to verify. I know with the pirated GBA carts there are a few tell tale signs including no Nintendo printed on the edge of the circuit board, stickers that are not exactly even on the cart, and the cart not fitting well into the GBA. Another thing to look for is imperfections in any etchings.

The pirated carts usually contain cheap batteries that will fail after a few months or even weeks.

Edited on by rodoubleb

rodoubleb

Slapshot

I know not ALL sold on ebay is fake but if you go on now and look a ton of them say "only for DS/Light" or "will not work on DSI" because its fake. One of the sellers I bought from had their account deleted by the time I got the game and the other said the game was in Canada when I bought It but it shipped from Honk Kong(?) I actually had a seller contacted me very rudely about a copy of Kirby I bought for GBA years ago on ebay and I got curious about it the other day and its a freaking fake too. Thats 3 Ive bought now, and it wil never happen again.
@greyelephant.... talkin around on forums I found a guy that bought a copy of New Super Mario Bros from HK and took it to GameStop to trade in and it scanned as Mario 64. Most of them have complete bogus barcodes that wil not recognize at all. Wich is good because there is no resale in them.

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theblackdragon

it's not just HK sellers that will sell counterfeits, there have been people burned by US sellers too. there are other things to look for than that list i rattled off up there:
info @ 4 color rebellion
info @ Nine Over Ten
info @ Defcon-5
info @ PocketGamer.co.uk (it must be pointed out, however, that not all authentic DS games have a stamped-on code on the back of the game, though most -- if not all -- newer games will have this code, and on an authentic game it will always be horizontal, never vertical.)

to protect yourself, you can ask the seller up-front for pictures of the actual game itself and its booklet/packaging. should the seller be unwilling to provide pictures, or should they try to reassure you that the game is 'like new' or whatever and you decide to go along with it sight-unseen, don't whine when it turns out to be a pirated copy. there's also another reason to be aware of used games and piracy -- there have been instances where people have come across counterfeit games at places like GameStop being sold for the same price as an authentic version. apparently it's rare, but it happens.

you may be buying under the 'well, the game is out of print and money isn't going back to the game companies by my purchase anyway, so i may as well buy a counterfeit'... be warned that pirated games will not work in your DSi (as demonstrated in the Defcon-5 videos; that is exactly what happened when I tried the Partners in Time cart in mine out of curiosity), so if that's what you're buying for, you must be especially careful. under normal circumstances, i can totally understand pirating games that are out of print and where legitimate copies are being sold for insane amounts of money. however, if i was gonna do it that way, i'd just get a damn flash cart and hit up TPB for any game i wanted, not pay some random jerk extra for shipping from HK to have to deal with faulty batteries, random freezing, and the chance that the one game wouldn't even work with my system. if i'm paying good money for something advertised as the real deal, i'd like for it to be the real deal as advertised, plz.

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James

I can't see how buying a pirate copy cheaper is more acceptable than buying a genuine second hand copy. If a game is out of print or hard to find, of course its price is going to increase! And people complain about games not having "true value".

I see a lot of pirated games at work and often people are surprised to find out they've bought a copied game - counterfeits are getting better all the time, and it's getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between them. The rule of thumb would be (courtesy of Damo) - if it seems too good to be true, it is.

James

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warioswoods

Good god, looking at ebay just now, it's ridiculous. So many DS games for sale from Hong Kong, etc for cheap prices, and the sellers have the audacity to state clearly on the listings that the games will not work with the new DSi !!

I just reported a couple sellers to see what happens, although the reporting system doesn't give you enough space to describe a technical matter like this; I think I'll follow up by being a pain and writing some long complaints directly to Ebay detailing how to spot these, and perhaps including the names of every seller I can locate who is doing it. If even one fraudulent seller gets shut down here and there, a little effort is worth it. I know that Ebay scans for the word 'homebrew' and flags any listing mentioning it as potentially a modchip or other illegal device, so they need to start scanning for any mention of DSi-incompatibility in DS games listings.

As far as I'm concerned, Ebay should just cut off certain nations entirely. Sounds extreme, but if the majority of the listings originating from a place are pirated / bootleg, just shut down all accounts and put a quick stop to it. Until they can get their act together legally on their end and stop piracy from being a significant part of their economy, there's no reason to let them participate in any legitimate websites.

Twitter is a good place to throw your nonsense.
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