If you’re a video game pirate, then chances are you’ve likely had a pretty good year, largely thanks to the “hard-working” efforts of those who can crack and repack games.
Among the games broken throughout the year and made free on the underground Internet, The Last of Us Part 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the Oblivion Remaster, some of which were cracked within minutes of release. Heck, even recent Call of Duty titles found themselves being cracked by pirates after years of work.
That said, while many gamers have been the beneficiaries of piracy, it isn’t cheap to keep things running, and one of the most notorious members of the piracy community is once again asking for those who’ve benefited to donate to their cause.
Xbox Isn’t Competing With Other Consoles Because It Has Already Lost
Instead of going after PlayStation and Nintendo, Xbox is setting its sights on TikTok.
These Gamers Won’t Pay For Their Games, But They’ll Gladly Donate To Make Sure They Keep Getting Them For Free
FitGirl, one of the biggest members of the piracy community, once again put out a call to action for those who’ve benefited from their repacks — more manageable files of pirated games. This time, they’re soliciting donations via cryptocurrency, likely to keep their anonymity alive.
“All these years, I have kept the site ad-free,” a post on their site read. “I’m not gonna change my policy about ads. I’m not earning money off my hobby, but only try to cover expenses, and when some of you donate periodically – it’s all good. So, if you can afford to say ‘Thanks’ in a crypto monetary way – be my guest; I have a plethora of cryptocurrencies supported for donating.”
Much like the last call for action, which saw a cryptocurrency millionaire donate over $42,000 to FitGirl, several users on Reddit affirmed that they will donate to help keep their operations running.
“Fair enough,” one user wrote. “We know hosting multiple files in multiple places costs money. FitGirl has provided resources with her skills, as a user, if we have a little money, it’s better to donate it for FitGirl to keep going.”
As we saw when Hollow Knight: Silksong was cracked at release, pirates often have their own internal code they follow. In that instance, pirates urged each other to not grab the cracked copy of Silksong and instead support the developers at Team Cherry by paying full price, something many agreed with. Flash forward to today, and despite not paying for games, pirates are banding together to help an anonymous repacker keep doing their thing.
Arc Raiders Should Have Been At Least Nominated For This GOTY Category
Arc Raiders Sound Design is fantastic, and it’s a real shame it didn’t get a nod at this years Game Awards.
