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 used Alcohol 120%, which was based off DaemonTools. Eventually I learned how to make my own “mini disc images” to load on my virtual CD drive, because some little bit on the CD was all the games installed on hard drive were checking for, with regards to copy protection.
I experimented with this as well, but since I was keeping full copies of the discs on my hard drives anyway, it was unnecessary in my case. I still have most of these disc images; now on my NAS.