This is during the era when the N64, PS1, SNES, Dreamcast or Sega Genesis were popular. Games back then were released physically via disc or cartridge, meaning distributors or publishers would’ve implemented anti-piracy (like Lenslok) measures onto physical copies but some knew how to tamper with anti-piracy if they have a computer using other sources of capturing data (floppy disks).
Also, games at the time were ‘simple’ to torrent but with a catch (dial up was still a thing at the time meaning downloads could take a while if you have a PC). Discs were more straight forward than “torrenting” cartridges (unless you have connections with the manufacturer on smuggling circuit boards). Like with movies, games that came on discs were “torrented” through CDs by using a PC.
I think the first time I tried N64 emulation must have been in late 2002. There were indeed still games released for this system at the time, although not many. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (ported to the console in 2002) was one of the last big games for it. Fun fact: The PC version at lowest settings looks almost identical to the N64 port.
Early N64 emulation was spotty, but the fact that it worked at all absolutely blew my mind, especially since I was just in the process of switching from N64 to PC as my main gaming platform. Super Mario 64 was one of the first titles to be properly playable with next to no issues, but outside of that game, it was a bit of a gamble and remained so for years. Performance could vary wildly, glitches were very common (some titles remained unplayable until surprisingly recently, like the excellent voxel-based Command and Conquer port for the system) and the plugin system proved to be a nightmare, as it fractured development resources.