Video game bootlegs are an extremely interesting and even stranger rabbit hole to fall into and the kinds of thing bootleggers do with GTA is probably the most interesting part of it all. While most of us have access to legitimate, cheap copies of games that can be bought from the comfort of our homes, in some countries, piracy is literally your only option.
A recently posted image about a bootlegged copy of "GTA V six 6" for the PlayStation 2 being found in Brazil is making the rounds on the internet. But for people who've seen game "stores" in places like China and Indonesia, this won't be particularly surprising.
While for you and me, buying an official, legal copy of almost any game we can imagine through various digital distribution sites without even stand up from our comfy chairs, this isn't the case in some countries. Certain censorship laws and region locking make buying games legitimately and incredibly difficult endeavor.
I spent 3 years living in China, Shanghai specifically. While legitimate copies of console games could be found, though rare, there was quite literally no source of legitimate PC games. Importing from abroad was the only option, and even that wasn't always an option due to laws which banned shipping from certain countries.
Sure, the Steam could be used (I'm quite surprised it wasn't banned), however pretty much everything bought would be locked not even only to China, but mainland China. As a test, I purchased Fallout: New Vegas on the same account while in Hong Kong, and installed it. True enough, upon trying to play back in Shanghai, I was greeted with a message saying the game is region locked to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
As someone who staunchly opposes piracy, I restricted game purchases to whenever I was home in Europe since I knew my time in China would only last 3 years, so stocking up on region-locked games wasn't financially viable. If I wanted to play, I just used a VPN.
But these measures just weren't convenient or possible for some people, say, locals. Simply to experience what gaming is like in such a country, I tried out doing things "the local way", meaning checking out the bootleg scene. Now, I know from experience that there are plenty of legitimate game stores in Shanghai which look the part, but those exclusively sell console games.








