This is during the era when the N64, PS1, SNES, Dreamcast or Sega Genesis were popular. Games back then were released physically via disc or cartridge, meaning distributors or publishers would’ve implemented anti-piracy (like Lenslok) measures onto physical copies but some knew how to tamper with anti-piracy if they have a computer using other sources of capturing data (floppy disks).
Also, games at the time were ‘simple’ to torrent but with a catch (dial up was still a thing at the time meaning downloads could take a while if you have a PC). Discs were more straight forward than “torrenting” cartridges (unless you have connections with the manufacturer on smuggling circuit boards). Like with movies, games that came on discs were “torrented” through CDs by using a PC.
There was a pirate scene even in the 80s, during the 8-bit computer era. Transferring games to floppy from a 300 baud modem.
Parents had a good friend of theirs that gave us a ton of games every time he visited. Most of them were game selection startup menus, because the uploaders wanted to use up all of the space on the floppy, so they crammed it up with 6-8 games each. You can still find these disk copies on certain C64/ATARI XL game torrents.
All the while SPA was still pushing anti-piracy commercials on PBS channels. “Don’t copy that floppy” was always their silly tagline.
And yea, once Napster turned into a household name, piracy was mainstream.
Holy shit… I finally found one of the screenshots for these loaders:
You could load up a disk full of games and tie it to a boot loader menu like this.
C64 sneakernet swapped floppies were huge at the time, no modem required.
I mean, that’s how we ultimately got them. We must have had most of the popular ATARI XL games in two wooden floppy boxes.
But, you gotta respect the networked distribution even back then. Pirates would create their disk packs, upload it to some national BBS. It gets picked up by more local BBSs, and tech-saavy modem users would download it to floppies. All the while sneakernet would carry it down the last mile to fill in the gaps. Some of this shit even went international, as long as somebody dealt with the long-distance fees (or phreaked their way out of them).
EDIT: Just to give you an idea of the network we were dealing with.
Reminds me of Sneakers, it was a great movie
Good flick, but to be clear sneakernet is just handing over physical media in person.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of hard disks (or a suitcase full of microSDs on a plane).