Software pirates chip away at gaming industry revenue
What's $50 to a computer gamer? That'll just about cover the latest game titles for the
Meet the mod chippers, people who rip open gaming consoles and add circuits that bypass their built-in security features. It's an underground movement at the fringe of legality whose members are at once boastful and desperate for anonymity. It's not hard to see why, when federal courts say that modifying game consoles is a form of software piracy.
"It's kind of in a gray area," admits one of them, a Massachusetts resident who identifies himself only as Black--Light. His fear of publicity doesn't extend to the Web, where Black--Light advertises his services. Depending on the features you choose, Black--Light will modify an Xbox for $30 to $100, plus shipping. His customers send the consoles to him -- he e-mails them his address -- and Black--Light does the rest.
A Google search unveils many other chippers for hire, as well as businesses that sell the hardware to do-it-yourselfers. Once the mod chip is installed, a formerly law-abiding console will run illegal pirate copies of the latest games.
How much does it cost the gaming industry? That's hard to say, but it's probably in the millions. The Entertainment Software Association, the industry's trade group, says all forms of software piracy totaled $3 billion in 2001. However, much of that involves illegal copying of games for desktop computers, which are much easier to rip off than console games. You don't have to rewire your computer to make it run illegal software because PCs don't contain built-in circuitry that limits what they can do.
Consoles are different. They're home entertainment devices, like DVD players. In fact, the PlayStation 2 and Xbox are DVD players as well as game boxes.
Like other DVD players, the game consoles contain chips that restrict their functions. American PlayStations and Xboxes won't show foreign-made DVD movie discs or play overseas-produced games. Want to play a cool game you saw in Tokyo? You must buy a Japanese version of the console to play it. And another thing -- if you use a DVD burner to make a copy of a game, the copy won't work.
Unfair, the chippers say. People have a right to make backup copies of software they paid for. Many mod chip sites insist this is all their products are meant for. But in a moment of candor, Black--Light admitted that nearly every mod chipper is a software pirate. "That's really the only reason people do it," he said. "They just say they're making legal backups so they won't get in trouble."
A mod chip is a piece of silicon that seizes control from a similar chip built into the game consoles. The standard chip contains software that sets all those annoying limits on the machine's performance. But solder in a mod chip and install some software available for free on the Internet, and those restrictions disappear. Suddenly your PlayStation or Xbox can play any game produced anywhere in the world. You can use Internet file-swapping software to download dozens of games without paying a penny, or you can rent games at the local Blockbuster, make copies, and add them to your permanent collection.
"The modding of the XBox itself should certainly be legal; why shouldn't I have permission to modify a piece of hardware I've paid for?" said Mark, a 33-year-old researcher in Iowa City who spoke on the condition that his last name not be printed.
Strictly speaking, he's right. Modding a game console voids the warranty, but it's no more a crime than flinging it against a wall. It's your machine; do what you please.
Even game companies admit this. A Microsoft spokesman said that the company tracks the vendors of mod chips and takes legal action against them on a case-by-case basis. For instance, a company that simply sells blank chips that can be used to modify a console is doing nothing illegal. But if they sell the software that circumvents the game machine's limitations, that's a violation of a 1998 federal copyright law. Just ask David Rocci, a Virginia man who was sentenced to five months in prison last year for selling Xbox mod chips with illegal software included.
Black--Light figures to stay one step ahead of the law. He'll sell you mod chips, even install them for you, but he won't provide the software. He'll just tell you about places on the Internet where you can download it for free.
Internet civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation say the law's restrictions on game copying are too Draconian, and they have a point. People surely have a right to make copies of software they've paid for, and today's technology offers no legal way to do this.
But how many mod chip users are interested in making honest backups? You could probably fit them all into the trunk of a Cadillac, with space left over for a spare tire. Even Mark from Iowa knows he's up to no good. "I have qualms about backing up games, actually," he said, "and I've no way to justify that practice."
The console makers are fighting back with technology as well as law. According to Mark Androvich, editor of the PlayStation gaming magazine PSE2, they've redesigned their circuit boards time and again, rendering various mod chip designs obsolete. There have even been reports that Microsoft may not include a built-in hard drive in the next-generation Xbox -- partly to cut costs but also because the hard disk makes it much easier to install pirated software.
But Androvich doubts the mod chippers will ever be defeated. "Whenever a company tries to do something to protect its software," he said, "somebody else is going to try to get around it."
The console crackers certainly won't give up. After all, for these guys, it's a game.
