[ilyt]

My friend from school basically got his entire PC upgrades for good 5-6 years paid because he "invested" in CD burner (then-expensive devices requiring SCSI card to even work) and profited off copying business. Think it was around age of 10.

[dopidopHN]

I started a « business » sending burned games to tunisia from rural France. At the time Tunisia had a thriving game cafe scene. But shitty broadband.

It was cheaper to find someone on a phpbb forum to send you physically something than dealing with ISP and shitty local internet laws.

It lasted for a year or so. I send hundreds of disks. Was getting pay thought bank wire on my older brother account.

I think I drink all of it in cheap pastis drink.

[ptsneves]

Keep in mind that here in Poland it is said cdprojekt of Witcher and cyberpunk fame started by selling bootlegged western games. I do not have a source for this.

[srfvtgb]

The founders got their start selling pirated software, but CD Projekt itself started as a legit importer and localiser. Their initial success was due to knowing that they needed to compete with pirates on quality and convenience because piracy was so prevalent in Poland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Projekt#Founding

[ilyt]

I remember! Baldur's Gate was a first "legit" game I bought for my pocket money that wasn't just "a game attached to a magazine".

And the localization was epic. It would be basically equivalent to all movie/TV star localization on the west. I still like the translated narrator better than the original.

[rasz]

CD Projekt CEO Marcin Iwiński aka 'S.S. Captain' (SS came from Star Ship)

https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/04/cdprojekt-niekoloryzowane...

translated, but broken images: https://spidersweb-pl.translate.goog/plus/2021/04/cdprojekt-...