An Email from a Piracy Supporter and More...

No, this is not part of the ongoing drama in the Philippine blogosphere, it's more like a sitcom.

Two of GameOPS' recent posts have spread across the interwebs, even reaching GamePro. This prompted an "angry" piracy supporter to email and flame us. Rocky said to just ignore the fool and move on with our lives. But I couldn't resist "stalking" this n00b, especially since he/she mistook GamePro for GameSpot. We didn’t even email GamePro to inform them about our post. Geez.

From the IP address, I managed to verify that the hater is from the Philippines.

inetnum: 58.69.102.94
netname: Plan1995
address: PLDT Sampaloc
country: PH
phone: +63-2-885-9176
e-mail: ***********@pldt.com.ph
descr: GNTC10K01_Plan1995

Since the info I gathered was leading nowhere, I decided to stop. That is, until several incoming links from a Philippine community of Xbox owners came in. You’ll be surprised by the comments they posted on their forum. Their comments, and my reactions, after the jump.

Just because we’re Filipinos doesn’t mean we condone the actions of people who steal copyrighted materials, in this case, the selling of pirated video games.

We used to buy pirated games—and that was years ago, during the Famicom era. Why can’t you accept that some people now prefer to buy legitimate software?

If you’ve been following our articles about piracy, we’ve clearly stated that these pirated games usually come from China or Malaysia. We never said they came from the Philippines.

The harsh reality is, we’re exposing the truth about our society—and the problem with some of you is that you're afraid of change. Some of you can’t accept the fact that something valuable to you might be lost simply because someone is speaking the truth.

I don't want to point fingers, but the most logical source of that email could be the forum mentioned above. The GameOPS Response-O-Matic form is located on our About page, and the link shared in their forum was exactly that: a link to our About page. The incoming links and the email were just minutes apart. Go figure.

One member even welcomed me to the forum. I've been a lurker there since early 2004 and registered an account in 2005.

A few days later, the same guy who posted the link to our About page shared another one—an entry where we recommended EYO Sales for modifying game consoles to play import games. He argued that the only purpose of modchips is for piracy. O RLY?!

Karlo even joined the discussion. But when the conversation started going nowhere, I asked:

MMM...KAAY.

At least one person still remembers GameOPS:

Oh well, you can't please everybody. Another point for my prediction #2 for 2007.

Quoting my friend Alvin: “Only in the Philippines… where posting an article is a big f*cking deal.”