SIM Lim Square may once have been a haven for pirated games.

The peddlers have now moved to places such as Ang Mo Kio in a bid to escape the authorities.

Similar shops are also known to be operating in Yishun and Hougang.

The New Paper visited four such shops in the Ang Mo Kio central area which sell pirated goods along with the original ones.

They sell cartridges that can be used to fool consoles into playing pirated games.

They also modify customers' consoles to play games downloaded from the Internet.

A perennial best-seller is the R4 cartridge, one of a series of cartridges known popularly as flash carts.

Such flash carts trick the Nintendo DS, a popular game console, into thinking they are real games.

Users can then download games to their memory cards and play them as if they were original copies.

Many of these shops also provide pirated games for download, and sell memory cards that come pre-loaded with a variety of popular games.

Original cartridges have the Nintendo logo and a serial number. The E7 and R4 carts have no such markings.

OPEN SALES

A shop owner in Ang Mo Kio even showed us a catalogue of pirated games we could choose from.

But other shops appeared more suspicious of potential buyers.

To convince them, you'll have to strike up a conversation - or even buy a few original games - before they'll show you the pirated ones.

Only one of the four shops in Ang Mo Kio that we visited was willing to let us examine the cart before we bought them. Others insisted that we buy them.

One game shop owner, who did not want to be named, said that most shops flout the law by selling illegal goods.

He said: 'Most of such shops in the heartlands stock these pirated goods. I didn't want to sell them because I can be caught.

'But what to do? My customers come in and ask for these cartridges. If I don't have them, they walk out.'

He said he sells 10 to 20such cartridges each week.

While original games sell for $30 to $60 each, the R4 and similar cartridges can be had for anywhere from $50 to $100.

And they can be used repeatedly, giving the user an unlimited supply of games.

But game shop owners said these counterfeit memory cards have a higher breakdown rate, and come with no warranty.

Some gamers also say the transfer speeds are slower than with original cards and that the amount of space on them is different from that stated on the box.

HARDER TO MONITOR

Mr Cyril Chua, counsel for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), said that checking on shops in heartland estates is more difficult than investigating stores in central locations.

'They often sell pirated wares only to regular customers,' he said.

Another problem is that pirated games can now be downloaded from the Internet, then installed on game consoles by the users themselves.

'Piracy over the Internet is more difficult to track than retail piracy,' Mr Chua noted.

The ESA is a US-based alliance of video gaming companies which helps take action against game pirates.

In November last year, the ESA and the police raided six stores in Sim Lim Square, seizing more than 200 R4 cartridges and other such pirated devices.

But raids have not dented the enthusiasm of buyers here, who discuss on online forums the places one can go to buy them.

However, many popular game forums here, such as Gameaxis, bar users from discussing pirated material.

One thing is clear: As long as there are willing buyers, piracy will exist.

Even if it means going into the heartlands.

By Daryl Lim, newsroom intern

This article was first published in The New Paper on June 19, 2008.