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 remember the IRC channels where you would interact with channel bots to have them list what they had available. You’d make a selection, possibly end up in a queue, and then start downloading at 56k.
Honestly, none of it felt like or was treated as piracy. You were just sharing games (a physical thing you lent your friend). Even the game manual anti-piracy stuff was just treated like something you needed to work around. Your friends would just write down a few examples (like pg 43, line 26, word 12 = “punisher”) and just retry until that question was asked.
Good old mIRC. I remember using those bots too. It was on when I started college and got hold of high speed Internet for the first time.
IRC is still there. I still use it from time to time just to feel a rush :)
I use IRC daily. Theres rarely a time when someone is not speaking. And its not like I’m on 300 channels. I’m just on two. One of them is very active, the other one is for me and a few friends and is less active.
Sure, theres not thousands of channels full of people chatting all the time anymore. But once you find a nice server/channel, you’ll have a great time. Apparently the file sharing places are still going as well but I haven’t bothered to look into those.