Not a huge surprise. You can buy movies that aren't even out in theaters yet at the flea market in Salem. I got a copy of Kill Bill 2 for 3 bucks

Damn pirates.

Why I'm so mad I might have to the police auction.

Now where was that again?

Whoa.

Any word on how many stolen iPods were recovered?

so... anyway, they still need modded systems to run these games.
Unless they are selling pirate games from older systems like dreamcast and below. ANd if that's the case, who cares, the games aren't sold anymore anyway.

And if they are selling bootleg copies of games for the newer systems, and they run on legit systems, I must be doing something wrong.

The empty game box thing I don't understand either. I have a few myself, and go check gamestop, I'm pretty sure they have close to that many empties per store.

I really want to know what illegal games they had, and if this is just some bullshit scam. I mean, you can go to any ANY comic/toy/game convention and pick up bootleg shit.

It doesn't discourage people from selling it, it just makes the business of the people still doing it rise.

OMG...I have been there (like 10 6 years ago). I don't recall there being games. I guess they weren't that popular back the. I did recall a lot of illegal cds.

Imagine if piracy and the used game trade were stomped out... consider how large the market would be for new games, and how much profit developers could make in the industry.

We'd see 100 AAA games a year if we could kill off all this crap.

This market's located at Guadalajara, were I am from. Such market has 4 floors and the last one is a piracy hive.

Tennis shoes, clothes, DVD movies, videogames, anything you want and could be "cloned" is there.

@free touch, they sell current-gen illegal copies of games (Xbox 360, Wii, NDS) and last-gen (PS2, Game Cube, GBA) ones.

You want to know what's the worse: Right at the exit of this market there is a legal videogame store called GameXpress (I worked there 6 months) and most of the people go to the market to buy modded consoles and illegal games.

The other face of the coin is that here in Mexico, games are sold at 150% its real price at least: would you buy a US$90 copy of Soul Calibur IV? How about an US$300 DS Lite?

I'm against piracy, but I'd like that videogame companies could do something so we (mexican gamers) can buy games at a more fair price.

Oh, we also call it "Taiwan de Dios" instead of San Juan de Dios. :)

...then Mexico stole it back, right?

I live in Guadalajara and see the thing is no matter how many raids they do in San Juan...it's never gonna stop.

I heard a rumour a while ago that San Johny (or San Juan, or Taiwan de Dios) as an intel community and they know when this raids are gonna happen.what they do is they take out the defective or unsellable stock. that way whoever performs the raid (mexican authorities or the ESA)gets to dump this stock instead of them.

for a lot of people legal gaming is just unnaffortable and there's so much money circulating in places like this a lot of people's economy depends on it. You'd require a massive change in the country's heart for this to stop and..it's just not gonna happen anytime soon.

When I was younger I used to buy pirated psOne games by the pound because they were cheap and my parents said it was O.K. as I grew up and learned otherwise I started to value my console and my games, started buying only legit games in legit places which has also thought to value quality over quantity but I wonder how many other people see this and of course...how many people can afford it.

I live in Mexico City, and piracy has existed since gaming itself has existed. As has been stated on previous post, the high prices of original games is the main factor for the popularity of copied games and chipped consoles. For example, a new game, say Golden Axe: Beast Rider goes for $59.99 on the US. Here, on official stores, it can go anywhere from $95 bucks to $110. On the informal market (or black market, not pirate games but stolen nonetheless)that same game may go for around $80 bucks.

So, given the recent crisis, gaming is a really expensive hobby. Moreso here in Mexico, where even people that can affor original games, prefer pirated so they can buy even more. Only true gamers buy original games, and even we proud soldiers of the controller have to face rising prices and other necessary expenses.

The Solution? A traty between customs on high-end electronics is necessary to even out the price. It may seem hard to do, but the revenue would go to the roof, since high costs would no longer be a deterrent for purchase.

I've been there!

I bet you that by next week they could raid again and find the same ammount of stuff.

As a fellow mexican gamer it pains me to see the sorry state of our gaming market, high prices, piracy, and also, lack of official support, this last one is rarely mentioned but is a big part of the issue, from the big three, microsoft is the only one to have an official presence in the market, regulating console and first party game prices (it goes the extra mile of making localized versions of these), it's a big difference from what we get from nintendo and sony (300 USD for a ds? 500 USD for a wii? no mexican psn when there's a mexican xbox live?) and third parties are no better, I understand that there are more factors that make it hard for international companies to stablish in Mexico (there's a lot of crap that the goverment impose on most bussineses) but without them, there's little that can be changed in the current state of things

I live in Mexico too, and piracy is way to normal in our lives, although I do not buy pirate games I can only agree to Xhumation, this shit will never stop.