Archive for March 4th, 2007

For as long as I can remember, pirating has always been around here in Fiji.You see, pirating was so prevalent, simply for the fact that there wasn’t any retail outlet that actually sold original software. Sure we had Music Stores selling music, but thats different. Back then everyone bought music cds. When it came to games and software…not much luck. We didn’t have an EB Games neighbourhood store to check out when its two days before our birthdays. There wasn’t any Blockbuster Videos around the corner to rent out some action flicks for the long weekend.

Nope.

For games it was always the same thing.

“Woah! You’ve got Prince of Persia? ….. borrow?”

And then we’d all pull out our plastic boxes of floppy disks and exchange them eagerly. A few years later its the same thing.

“Woah! You’ve got Need for Speed: Carbon? …. borrow?”

Out come the blank dvds and pats on the back.

However, times do change, and none more so then the access to purchase original games. Thanks to IMDVD, anyone can now order original PC games and be a proud owner of a original games, (though one game in particular only because its an online game) as well as support the industry!

Videos were slightly different, but still invovled…less originals then there were movies. My fondest memories of childhood was going to the neighbourhood store and picking out 2 or 3 action movies (pirated of course and at times, shot in the cinema), and at least 1 tape full of, apparently, Saturday morning cartoons from a television network in Australia. Someone had simply left the record button on, and basically taped everything that could fill up 3 hrs, advertisements and all. It was there that my love for toys that I couldn’t possibly obtain here grew as well. I still like them Transformers toys…

Now we’ve got a whole swag of video stores, all boasting original movies for hire, and I like that. Nothing beats a good old original. Of course, nothing also beats 8 pirated movies for $20 from that good ol’ computer store Comsol Fiji. Those guys copies are usually the latest movies still screening, and if their copies are slightly fuzzy…its ok because you pay only like $2 for one.

Hopefully, with the increased westernization of Fiji, that’ll mean more access to original software, movies and games, and with more cheap alternatives, piracy will be for once removed from this country and we can all fully support the Entertainment Industry worldwide…

Of course, people hope there will be peace in the Middle East too. Good luck with that.