My name is Lewis and I was a pirate. Notice the ‘was’ in that statement? I mean, strictly and legally speaking, we're probably all pirates to some degree - we've all borrowed a rental video off a friend and watched it without paying a penny; we've probably all taped a CD or two off a mate and most people have an illicit copy of 'Back Door Babes Seven.' So, to some extent, we're all guilty. However, when I say 'was' I'm referring to back in the day when everyone, it seemed, was at it with computer games.

When I first had my C64 friends started popping out of the woodwork wanting to swap games with me - which was great until they wanted them back. "But I haven't finished it yet," I would moan. There followed a look of amazement from the lender who couldn't believe I had even loaded it without running it through my big sister's tape-to-tape first. What was this world of copying that I did not know of? Did this mean I could get all these amazing games for nothing? Was everybody doing this?

You are hereby advised not to type “Sister Tape” into Google
images. Here’s a picture of a tape deck instead.

It didn’t take me long to suss the basic knowledge and once I had the tools for the job there was no stopping me. Instead of spending my wages on games, I bought blank tapes to fill up with copies of those games. At Christmas I told my parents to let all the relatives know that I wanted blank tapes instead of socks. In hindsight I should perhaps have only told a few relatives. To this day I still have unopened packets of Tandy C30 cassette tapes in the loft. They must be worth something on eBay by now.

Another, older, friend of mine worked in Cheshire and only came home at weekends. I would troop round to his house every Friday night to swap games and we'd make copies of each other’s recent acquisitions. I'd be there with two or three ninety-minute tapes full of stuff I have gleaned from my schoolmates. He'd have a box of disks full of games gleaned from his workmates. Many a time we would still be at it as dawn broke, bleary eyed but determined to synchronise our collections.

I’ll swap your Rebelstar Raiders for my Paradroid…

Oh, how we laughed. And oh, how we copied.

Never once did I think about the poor sods that had produced these games. Games were mostly written, as a way of making a living, by ‘bedroom coders’ and there was me and just about everyone I knew ripping them off.

At the time I didn't realise that I wasn't doing my self any favours either. After my little copy parties with my mate I'd go home, insert the tape and load up the first game on my little compilation cassette. Three minutes of play later and I'd be loading up the next one. Three minutes of play on that one and the cycle continued. It was very, very rare that I'd devote more than five or ten minutes to a game. I'd kid myself thinking that I would return to them for a proper play later but I never did. I was just interested in seeing what came next on the tape. When I first started copying games I would religiously note down the counter position on the inlay card so I could go back later but this soon stopped and I had dozens of tapes crammed full of undocumented games I didn't return to.

I started to get bored of games so I stopped copying them and for a few months I didn't even look at the '64. My copy-party friend was now working in Edinburgh and didn't come home for weeks at a time so I sort of lost interest altogether.

Honey, have you met Lewis – he’s got a computer too! I’m
sure you’ll get on famously…

At some point during my sabbatical we went to visit one of my father's workmates in Nottingham. He had a son my age who also owned a '64 so naturally our respective parents believed we'd automatically become friends for life by default. We went to his room and he proudly showed me his collection of games and I was stunned. There must have been at least a dozen (count 'em) games. I refrained from pissing myself laughing and accepted his offer of a head to head game on Pole Position.

What followed changed my view of games, possibly forever. We played that first game for over two hours before we had to stop for dinner and I couldn't believe how the time had flown. I knew I had a copy of the game but I'd barely glanced at it and it showed - I was getting my ass whooped badly. We returned to our competition after dinner and spent the next four hours playing the same game and what a blast we had.

Saint Paul never had it this good…

As we drove home it dawned on me that I'd missed out on a brilliant game because I was always eager to see what was next. If I had spent my hard earned cash on them I would have been more inclined to put the necessary effort in. God knows how many other great games I'd missed because they hadn't cost me anything so I hadn't put any effort into enjoying them. Over the next few weeks I started to go through my tape collection and forced myself into persevering with the games. It was no hardship at all.

These days I'm not a great copier of anything anymore. I have a shelf full of original PC games, yet I live within a mile of a massive Sunday market where any of the latest games can be bought for a few pounds. I have shelves full of music CDs yet I have broadband and could easily download anything I want. It's just that I like owning originals, I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford them and I don't mind paying for somebody's hard work. To me there's something special about owning an original copy of something. I don't know what it is nor do I want to analyse it too much. I'm just happy knowing that I have contributed to the artist or author in some way so hopefully they can continue producing the kind of things I like.

I… do… not condone… the copying… of… videogames…

I am not trying to portray a holier than thou image. I couldn't. You haven't seen my porn collection on VHS.

CIPPY, April 2004.

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