Amar Market in Bistupur. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, June 23: PlayStation 2 for just Rs 50 and Xbox 360 for Rs 100.

These are not the original copies but the pirated one which are being sold at places like Amar Market in Bistupur turning the place to a haven for illegal-trade of pirated video games.

Youngsters are making a beeline for the pirated versions, as they cannot afford the original copies with their limited pocket money. The old computer game titles cost between Rs 300 and Rs 500 and the new ones cost close to Rs 1,000 with video game consoles like PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 costing even more.

“I really like to play computer games so I have no choice but to buy the pirated games as the original ones are quite expensive,” says a student of Beldih Church School Ashish Mathur.

And businessmen who sell pirated copies of these video games are exploiting this aspect of the consumers.

“The companies which manufacture these games should take lower the price of these games, otherwise people will resort to the pirated versions. I will be happy to buy the original version if the prices goes down a bit,” a person shopping pirated games at Amar Market said.

A shopkeeper of Amar Market, who does not want to be named, said: “The shops here sell pirated games at throw away prices. These games do not come with warranty and are stored in poor quality DVD and CDs. We do brisk business because people do not want to buy the original version because of their price. But we cannot guarantee quality as this is an illegal business.”

Akshay Seth, a customer of original video games, said he does not buy the latest games as soon as they are released but wait till the prices of such games drops. “This way, I get the benefits of buying original games like warranty. If the video game disc is faulty, I can return it which I cannot do in case of a pirated CD,” he said.

The high-speed Internet connections have also spelt doom for the manufacturers of the video game console and other computer games. Anyone with Internet connection can now download movies, music and games for free through files known as torrents.

“I don’t buy the games as I can download it through the Internet,” says Ajay Sinha, a student of Kerala Samajam School.

Vineet Sharda, the co-owner of Sharda CD-ROM at Yashkamal Complex in Bistupur, said that video game manufacturing companies have started to lower the price. “We have new and old games in the price range of Rs 199-399 now. Piracy and games downloading through Internet has forced the manufacturers to lower the prices of the games,” he said.

“It depends upon consumer whether he wants to buy the original game or wants the pirated version,” says Sinha.