[anjc]

I don't think this contributed to the Dreamcast's downfall.

Given the state/speed of CD Writers at the time, quality of CDs, difficulty of finding ISOs, download speeds, and the temperamental Dreamcast laser, it was far easier to just buy games imo. It was even easier to chip your Dreamcast to region unlock it and buy cheap, legitimate Jap/US games, rather than wasting CD after CD trying to burn them.

[DanBC]

There was an active Usenet news group for Dreamcast binaries and that would have almost all content available.

[izacus]

Yeah, PC games did well in that era and were as easy to copy as Dreamcast ones. It's more that the console just wasn't competitive with others.