"Piracy Did Help The PlayStation Market" - How Bootlegs Allowed PlayStation To Take Over South Africa

This is the second in a two-part deep dive into the history of video games in South Africa. You can read part one here.

In 1995, my family emigrated to the UK, which is why I'll be sharing the recollections of my friend and local expert, Paul Loubser, to describe the years after. The previous chronology of events was fairly simple (no John, it really was not - Damo), but it was just a few perspectives from a larger patchwork of regional variation. It's important to cross-reference sources such as Joshua Rogers' research on the NES, with websites such as Sega Retro, in addition to local experts who lived this world, plus local magazines once they arrived.

For example, the Sega scene was fragmented; Sega Retro and K.I.D.Z. magazine each documented different aspects, sometimes conflicting. Sega Retro describes Consumer Electronics handling Saturn distribution, stating that NuMetro got involved with Sega from 2009. However, both Paul and actor Marc Pleass confirm that NuMetro was involved much earlier, actually distributing the Saturn.

Pleass' online portfolio states: "NuMetro Sega Saturn Game Holiday Program. Event coordinator and presenter 1995." Scholars will hopefully contact Pleass for further accounts. NuMetro is a cinema chain and, to my absolute delight, they like to alter the spelling of their name constantly. While this is great for drinking games, we'll be standardising it to NuMetro.

Given this confusion around Sega's history, and the fact it would withdraw from hardware after the Dreamcast, it won't be my focus here. Official Nintendo support, meanwhile, according to Rogers, stopped in 1995 when the contract with Josse Feldman Ltd. ended, and would not resume until November 2002, when Funtronic began distributing the GameCube and Game Boy Advance. Though of course collectors for both Sega and Nintendo existed throughout, as evidenced by this online auction for every Sega Saturn Magazine issue with demos, costing R7500 / £340.

Thus, the main thrust of this piece will be the PlayStation range and PC gaming, which not only account for the largest market share from 1995 onwards but are also better documented. Notably, given 1998 would see the launch of New Age Gaming (later NAG), SA's own domestically produced PC and PlayStation magazine. They've even made a free archive of legacy issues, with most from 1998 and 1999 available (though there's a gap until 2003).

The New SA was in the midst of growing pains as it transformed under the newly elected government, with the highest and most violent crime in the world (doctors would visit SA specifically to gain experience treating gunshot wounds), plus a spiralling currency (until 1982 it was actually stronger than the dollar).

Despite all this, there was optimism for the future, as shown by NAG's editor Warren Steven in issue #2's feature on a local Quake 2 tournament. On page 68, he wrote:

"[...] An amazing 272 entries came through into our mail accounts, all with promises of taking home the biggest prize in South African gaming history. As you can see from what's been said, there is just cause for us to have hope for a better future of gaming in this country. If we can gather the powerhouses such as Creative Labs Africa, Super Diamond Computers, Mustek and Datatec together into one boardroom to discuss this venture, then winning that red Ferrari of John Carmack might not be too far off in that distant future."

The photos from the tournament are a precious artefact of this maelstrom of change, while Steven's editorial reveals his excitement as SA emerges onto the mainstream market and embraces it. Instead of makeshift workarounds and ostracisation, now the big companies were offering sponsorship, and there were even organised multiplayer clans!

Later, on page 72, there are similar sentiments pertaining to the PlayStation, including:

"As we progress down the evolutionary path of change, we come to wonder if we are ever going to see new and exciting developments in the retail sector. [...] If we are to follow closely with the global advancements then we need entrepreneurs with vision and guts [...] endeavour to keep up with the demanding technological advances that South Africans rarely see [...] PlayStation titles can be rented or purchased. The rates are a touch on the expensive side [...]"

It then describes being able to "rent" PS1 games in-store for R5 per 15 minutes (about 50p) - in other words, a makeshift "PS1 arcade". If you want to get a taste of the local zeitgeist before it dovetailed with the rest of the PAL market, the first 20 issues are great to peruse.

The mention of cost is important because it's a deep rabbit hole which defines the next two hardware generations. Sony handed distribution of PlayStation to the cinema chain Ster Kinekor in 1996. If you're thinking it's surreal that both the Saturn and PS1 were distributed by rival cinema companies, it gets even more so when Ster Kinekor took over distribution of Sega games in 2012.

The PlayStation Effect

Anyway, Kinekor's initial handling of things was so poor it encouraged the widespread adoption of chipped PlayStations, and thus the continued popularity of bootlegs and imports. This was due to three main factors: (1) locally set prices seen as expensive compared to previous generations and also domestic living costs; (2) inferior PAL 50Hz games arriving in 1996 after the market had already tasted NTSC imports; (3) a PAL release catalogue actually inferior to what the UK received.

Communicating cost is difficult given fluctuating exchange rates and inflation, but NAG's inaugural issue (April 1998) offers clues. Both Abe's Odyssey and Bushido Blade are given an RRP of R400, which according to Google equated to around £47 at that time. This seems expensive anyway, given PS1 games ranged between £40 and £45 in the UK back then, but when you factor previous hardware generations and local wages, it becomes ridiculous.

Famiclone games started from R20 and the system was R200; later Mega Drive games cost up to R250 with the system itself going for R800. Workers meanwhile might have taken home only R1200 per month in 1998. Granted, the country had a vast disparity in wages, meaning the numbers are skewed, so this source isn't massively useful here; there were also some extremely wealthy earners. But whichever way you try to massage various figures to make the RRP seem less exorbitant, it's difficult not to see a single PS1 game as requiring a substantial percentage (%) of a person's pre-tax monthly earnings.

Just to put this in context, after the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 was passed in the UK, earning minimum wage you'd get about £580 per month, meaning that £45 game was only 8% of monthly earnings. Of course, the cost of living was higher in the UK.

If all these numbers get confusing, Paul sums it nicely when discussing his modded Japanese console, which David imported for him long before the PS1 officially hit SA:

"Trying to run PAL Mortal Kombat Trilogy on a Japanese console just wasn't working. It would do weird things, like you'd only get the background, not the players. That was my first foray into PAL games on PS1. Because up until then I'd never even seen PAL games. It was also when I started looking at games locally and seeing their pricing and being like, wow, oh my God, these prices are insane!"

And for context, he describes Japanese and American imports as costing only R450 - still expensive, but not much more than domestic copies.

So not only did Ster Kinekor launch a year after other PAL territories like the UK, but they priced the games much higher, in a market previously accustomed to bootleg prices. Meaning imports thrived, and also bootlegs, as Paul explains:

"We were really gunning for the pirated stuff for a very important specific reason, and it was actually less to do with the pricing - it was the availability. You see the local distribution agents at Ster Kinekor - and I want to be very careful how I say this - they were not what I'd call gaming enthusiasts. So they went with the defaults and the basics, and didn't have an understanding of gaming. That's on top of the fact the PAL catalogue was so limited - it would see releases months after the American version, which in some cases was a year behind the Japanese. So Ster Kinekor only carried the PAL catalogue, which was limited, arriving late, very expensive - and they didn't even bring over all of the PAL games available!"

A fine example is Final Fantasy VII: it hit Japan in January 1997, then America in September, the UK in November, and SA? That April 1998 launch issue of NAG has the domestic review, roughly five months after other PAL territories, and more than a year after Japan. To be fair, few would enjoy playing such a text-heavy RPG in Japanese, but Paul also describes how Japanese releases of titles like Biohazard 2 would turn up in SA the same month they launched, locals would play through bootleg copies, and then, when the US version came out, they would import a legit copy. By the time the PAL iteration dragged itself over, nobody cared anymore.

"Even flea-markets would start carrying PS1 games," explains Paul. "There would be knockoffs everywhere. It started very small. Some of the local stores would have them. The shopkeeper would bring them out for you, very much in the 'Hong Kong style', where if they felt comfortable with you, they would pull them from behind the counter and show you they're available and much cheaper. The copies were from Asia, so mostly Japanese versions. It was great to play unusual games you would never see normally, like SD Gundam: Over Galaxian. It was so cool because we stumbled onto a lot of interesting niche titles. The pirates realised this thing was getting big, so they started bringing over American games too. PAL games were never pirated, because NTSC games came out earlier and ran at 60Hz."

Bootleg Bounty

Paul would eventually co-found multiple game stores dealing in legitimate grey imports, but before that, he dabbled in the dark side, selling bootleg discs at flea markets. I pressed him on the details, not to condone piracy, but to understand the logistics of how it operated:

"I don't want to go into too many details, but when my friends and I started, we were also selling pirated games alongside originals. The piracy industry was a very well organised machine. We got games which were silkscreen printed. It wouldn't look like the original game, but it would look legit. And you would get variations - I picked up different Rockman X4 knockoffs because I liked the art they used. And this might get me killed, but these discs were not burned with a CD writer, these discs were pressed in a factory. Then they'd be smuggled into the country. There were so many guys bringing pirated stuff in, it could have reached our shores any number of ways. I know it's bad to say, but piracy did help the PlayStation market, because Ster Kinekor ended up selling a lot more PlayStations than initially projected. Later on we were selling consoles hand over fist, and we were getting them from legit suppliers in SA. These were the PAL consoles."

Paul went on to describe some of the oddities which came their way, specifically pre-release copies of games. Notably a development build of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which was awkward to play, broken and clearly unfinished. Also an incomplete copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which lacked later sections. Presumably these were press preview copies which had somehow ended up in circulation. And of course they also received Thrill Kill, which infamously went unreleased. His accounts reminded me of the mysterious bootleg copy of the unreleased ClayFighter Extreme on PS1, which someone discovered in India relabelled as Tekken 5.

Later, Paul would co-found Edge Games ("Because we were on the cutting edge"), which then metamorphosed into AnimeWorx, selling legitimate imports. What's interesting is that this business venture would go on to have a much wider impact:

"We were definitely one of the cooler stores. We had taste, for lack of a better word. At some point everybody was just selling the same generic crap. It's not fair to say the games were crap, but everybody had Crash Bandicoot and Tekken. Everybody had the basic stuff.

But we were reaching in there and getting the Squaresoft catalogue, or Konami's Symphony of the Night, Suikoden, all these weird titles that other places didn't sell. I want to be very careful with how I say this, but people who worked for the big distributors would be customers - in some cases for market research. This helped conversations happen about which games should come through.

Reps would have long chats with us and see what we were excited about, and would mention what they were excited about. It helped to turn things a little bit and make the official games industry better. Because now these guys were realising they should be bringing over games like Resident Evil - Code: Veronica on PS2. Initially they did not want to, because Resident Evil 3: Nemesis sold badly on PAL. But that was because it was an overpriced PAL version and the knockoffs were out three or four months before it even hit shelves. They didn't realise why it wasn't selling; they thought it wasn't selling because it was a bad game.

So there was an education that needed to happen. We were not the only store they spoke to and dealt with - that would be naive - but I feel our conversations had weight, because we started seeing more games. They would ask, 'Why did you guys import Devil May Cry?' And we told them, because it's amazing. We'd then ask, 'Why didn't you guys bring it in?' And they'd say, 'Oh, we thought it was going to be another Resident Evil 3 and wouldn't sell.' DMC did eventually reach SA, but only two years after the fact.

You could say some 'consulting' happened; or more accurately, market research of what might be popular. It was never a formal thing; these were all just conversations with the reps. So things slowly changed, and it was cool to see."

Ster Kinekor would sell its PlayStation division in 2018.

Toxic Relationship

Something not yet addressed in this article is the fact that games are actually developed in SA. Thankfully, today there's a curated Steam page called MakeGamesSA, listing several, including culturally important titles such as Angola '86 and Beautiful Desolation. They also have a forum. But, similar to television, SA came to games development late, with one of the earliest domestic examples I could find being Toxic Bunny (1996, DOS) by Celestial Games. Helpfully, Paul also worked on it, or rather the HD remaster from 2014.

He explained his introduction to the property and how a simple advert planted a seed of influence:

"Toxic Bunny was an amazing moment in my life. I'd gotten my first PC in 1996 and there was a copy of PC Format magazine bundled with, and at the back of that magazine was an advert for Toxic Bunny, stating in big letters: 'proudly South African'. I remember being very excited because, oh my word, here's an opportunity to be a games artist in SA! That was a big thing.

Seeing this advert I realised: 'Here's a local company making a game. My career path is lining up now. I can actually make games in SA. This is going to be very exciting!' And I remember saying to myself in 1996, 'I'm going to work there one day.' It gave me this idea of wanting to be a games artist which I would eventually follow through.

Before that though my buddies would start the flea market stall, and then the bigger store, which put me in contact with industry people. I made friends with an illustrator, Warren Lowe, and we had these ideas of working for companies like Squaresoft, Blizzard, and Psygnosis. I was always hoping I could work for them, but these were all like: how am I going to get myself overseas and do that kind of stuff?"

Paul goes on to describe being introduced to the founder of Celestial Games, a man named Travis Bulford, an early pioneer in professional game development in the country. Travis would approach Warren, who would put him in touch with Paul, and after chatting, Paul was brought on board to make the HD remaster.

"I did a lot of the art in that game," explains Paul. "I would say about 85% of that game's artwork is mine. From the backgrounds, the levels, repainting all of that. I had a great time working on that version of Celestial, because the company changed over time. But that version of Celestial was great. We were bringing back to life this early SA title. And we were discussing cool game ideas and concepts, doing game jams, all that good stuff. It was crazy to work on Toxic Bunny because, as I said, I thought to myself, maybe a little cheekily, 'I'll work for them'. Then I actually ended up doing so, and we had some great times. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences in my life. Anybody that works on a game can tell you it's not easy; so to say it was enjoyable means even the rough stuff was a bit fun."

The game itself feels heavily reminiscent of Earthworm Jim; zany, fast, bizarre level layouts, lots of gunplay, and a little rough around the edges. Some critics compare it to Jazz Jackrabbit (1994), but once you play both titles, the comparison seems to be due solely to the main characters being rabbits; in this author's opinion, the later released Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (1998) in fact seems to borrow from Toxic Bunny!

The feedback on Steam for the remaster is mixed, with some hating its unpolished nature, and others embracing it. Having played both, it's worth noting the differences. The HD remake has some gorgeous graphics and is easy to set up, but they've streamlined the more esoteric gameplay elements, such as how potion crafting works (it's automatic), and removed the "anywhere shop" that allowed you to buy more potions. Instead, you need to collect recipes, whereupon potions are made with a button press. Also, the locations of progress items have been simplified. I prefer playing the original, which feels faster, but I prefer the visuals of the remake. According to Paul, the reception of the original game was also mixed, depending on where in the world you played it.

"Nothing hates a successful South African more than another South African," he says with a laugh. "The original game did very well in Europe - especially in Eastern Europe, places like Russia, Serbia, Poland. It was popular there. You know what Travis said to me about Toxic Bunny in SA? The biggest mistake he made was saying it was 'proudly South African' in the ad. It was the biggest mistake, because South Africans have such a messed-up self-image when it comes to anything we make. There's always this mentality of: 'oh, it's made in SA, it's kak.' But what they don't realise is that in the 1980s and 1990s, and a good swath of the early 2000s, we were regarded as one of the best countries in the world for graphic design, for advertising, for post-production in film."

You can really hear the frustration in his voice as he describes things - that hint of local pride back in 1996 opened his eyes to the possibilities of life in SA, that as a nation we could make games. But the opposing mentality he describes is one I've seen myself - notably a distant relative who would dismiss all SA wines in favour of what they believed were superior Californian vintages. In a Global Gaming piece written for Retro Gamer years ago, an Afrikaaner started a forum account to complain about a mistake I made with my two lines of Afrikaans, angrily demanding I leave Afrikaans to those who actually spoke it. A comment which haunted me for over 20 years.

After releasing Toxic Bunny in 1996, Celestial Games went on to develop a CRPG called The Tainted, and the story behind it is especially interesting. It's a multi-planet space adventure with real-time combat, a complicated levelling system, and some idiosyncratic design choices. Notably, you can access a remote shop at various times (it's via a ship in orbit), allowing specific items to be delivered as needed. Overall, the game has a really distinct vibe. Again, we asked Paul to share some info, having worked at Celestial:

"Travis is a big nut for Role Playing Games. The Tainted is one of those things I feel could have been as big as Fallout, because the timing was right for it. If it had come out when it was meant to, it would have come out before Diablo II. I played an early demo at South Africa's massive Icon Comic & Game Convention, sometime around 1998? In its earlier designed incarnation.

Ironically, the game itself was sadly tainted. At the time they were broken into and their machines and stuff were stolen. So they lost a lot of the code and had to remake the game again, essentially. They had to rush through it a second time, and so the version that we got is kind of a shadow of its intended self. It's regrettable because The Tainted had so much to give to the gaming world when it was going to come out. This is just a brief summary, the best person to speak to about Celestial would be Travis himself."

It's a good idea, limited only by the fact this feature has already grown too big (here's an interview by NAG). For those curious, The Tainted is available on abandonware sites. Both it and Toxic Bunny are interesting artefacts from a time when SA was finding its feet in the world of development, and seeing what could be done. While both have flaws, part of their charm is in seeing what creative people outside the mainstream could come up with.

There were no game design schools like in Japan, Europe, or America; these two games were by a team inventing and teaching themselves as they went, which calls to mind the concept of outsider art, which deviates from the codified conventions of the establishment. That both games had in-game shops which could be called up by the player at will is interesting; a few games have used this idea, such as Metal Gear Solid 4, but it's rare enough to be conspicuous.

Today Paul continues to freelance as an artist, working in all industries including games, while also co-owning Gunpla SA, a bricks-and-mortar model kit specialist which has remained relevant in the face of online competition.

Returning Home

After more than 30 years away, there was obviously the inkling that both the country and oneself would have evolved. The extent, though, was surprising.

Table Mountain remained the same; the city around it had changed forever. Bigger roads, more lanes, more traffic, an unimagined scale of growth, expansion, and gentrification. Our apartment was in an idyllic gated community, a veritable paradise, where previously there had been a coal power station.

Naturally we did the expected things: hiked around Table Mountain and the Cape of Good Hope, ate lobster at Kalk Bay, visited the incredible museum dedicated to the indigenous San people, explored Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, and so on. Each of us also indulged perhaps a little too much in the local cuisine, champagne, and confectionery - seriously, I don't know why Cadbury's Peppermint Crisp and Beacon Hen's Eggs are not manufactured and sold in the UK.

Overall, I felt happiness at seeing how SA had developed, now clearly accepted onto the world stage. As a society, it also exuded a kind of warmth. Everyone was friendly and welcoming, going out of their way to assist - and not because I was a foreigner; my lingering accent had actually managed to get me into Kirstenbosch for the local price (tourists usually pay extra for entrance to places). I cannot overstate how sincerely nice everyone was, specifically outside of commercial transactions. People would randomly start conversations in queues. There was an inescapable feeling of joie de vivre, as if the wounds of the past had healed and the younger generation were embracing life with optimism for the future. It contrasted with the bitter weariness in Europe at the unending status quo.

But I also felt a lingering sadness seeing the globalisation that today blankets every country. American brands are now omnipresent, whereas under sanctions local brands had an opportunity to blossom; local brands still exist, and some like Nando's are even exported, but they feel diminished. With video games, there are now only clean, uniformly presented, and officially approved products - SA is no longer an anomalous and culturally dislocated wild west.

Deep in my heart I knew it would be different, of course. And the sadness is perhaps less specifically that SA has changed, but rather that it did so along with the rest of the world. I've lived in SA, Poland, the UK, France, and even Japan, and every one of these nations today feels unlike how it did even just 15 years ago, let alone 30. The difference is that memories of SA existed in a bubble in my mind, outside of time all these years.

The aching realisation is that not only has my homeland changed dramatically, but so have I. My childhood in SA was during one of the last epochs when parts of the world could evolve semi-independently before global homogenisation flattened everything into a single online monoculture. Everything really was different back then; I witnessed both the end of Communism and Apartheid while there.

What feels melancholy and unexpected is how advancing age makes it increasingly difficult to replicate or even simulate how I felt as a child. Memories of a life before, like faded paintings, still adorn the walls of my mind, but the powerful emotions they once elicited have been dulled by time. As Thomas Wolfe wrote, You Can't Go Home Again.

It was an unforgettable holiday, which my father, brother, and I thoroughly enjoyed; hopefully I won't wait another 30 years before returning.

Special thanks to Paul Loubser, Heinrich Withers, and Ivan Swart for their kind assistance and photos.