Did I get a bootleg copy of Pokemon Diamond?

[McKnight]

I recently ordered a copy each of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Both games came from Hong Kong, but are completely in English. I received Pearl two days ago, and Diamond just yesterday.

However, I noticed that my newly received copy of Diamond has the following differences from both my Pearl copies:

-Diamond features its mascot Pokemon (Dialga) on the sticker. Pearl doesn't have a Pokemon on the sticker.
-On Diamond's sticker, blue light shoots from the "sky" like a spotlight. On Pearl's sticker, the orange-pinkish light just shines like... don't know what to compare it to.
-Diamond has a seal saying "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality." Pearl's just says "Official Nintendo Seal".
-On my Pearl game cards, you can see the words "The Pokemon Company" above the Nintendo logo. Not so on Diamond.
-On the back, you can see a bunch of letters and numbers behind the teeth of Diamond.

Is my newly-received copy of Pokemon Diamond a counterfeit? Will the data on it start deleting itself at some point or another, as had been the case with my first (pirated) copy of Pokemon Sapphire? If so, I might have to return it and get a refund. Should I?

 

[Transfinite]

It's probably bootleg, yes. If you can get a refund, do it.

Don't buy games from Hong Kong.

 

[Evil Raichu]

Sounds like it, yes. I hope you didn't pay too much for it, and hopefully the person will give you your money back.

 

[McKnight]

It's probably bootleg, yes. If you can get a refund, do it.

Don't buy games from Hong Kong.

Thanks for answering me. I will definitely send Diamond back for a refund.

However, I did get my second copy of Pearl from Hong Kong as well. Said copy of Pearl has all the same sticker features as my first Pearl card, which I got for Christmas and played all the way through without the data deleting itself. Are you sure that just buying it from Hong Kong means it's counterfeit anyway?

 

[Transfinite]

It doesn't mean that it is counterfeit, but English-speaking countries in Asia are notorious for being home to bootleggers, probably because they can get around copyright laws. It's possible to find genuine materials there, but it's better and safer to just buy locally.

 

[Tirtodile]

obviously.

 

[Ampere]

The data is probably less likely to be lost than Sapphire's save data because it's a DS game, not a GBA game. When GBA bootlegs lose data, it's usually because they have a battery for saving data rather than than the flash rom that's reserved for save data in genuine carts. As far as I know, no DS games can fit a battery as a cheap replacement.

 

[McKnight]

The other day, I went to Toys 'R' Us to download Regigigas onto both game cards. Upon turning on Pearl, it turns out that the data deleted itself on that game, even though it has the exact same sticker as my real copy of Pearl. I should've known it was also a bootleg, since the case is colored and designed differently from any of my other Nintendo DS games.

So, throwing away that copy of Pearl seems to be the obvious answer, now that I got a refund for it. However, with Diamond, I'm not sure whether to give it away or throw it away, but I'm leaning more towards the latter. If anyone else plays it, they'll be in for a disappointment if the data ever deletes itself. When I bought my fake copy of Pokemon Sapphire, it took four months for the data to delete itself, after which I could never save again until I got it replaced.

So anyway, I'm planning on buying used copies of Diamond and Pearl from GameStop when it gets closer to Christmas. That way, when I get a Nintendo DS-i, I'll probably have some Pokemon to trade from those two games onto my own copies of Pearl and Platinum, before I delete the data and wrap them up as Christmas gifts.

So, considering that DS games have different storage methods, that Pearl deleted itself, and that it took four months for Sapphire to delete its own data, does anyone here think I should give it away or just discard it completely?

 

[Tirtodile]

give it to me bro

 

[ChapperIce]

If you give it away just make sure you warn the person.

 

[acetrainer]

I bought pokemon fire red from an Amazon seller last summer and it turned out to be a bootleg. The "saved data" would delete itself when the system was turned off. I should have known something was wrong when it came shipped in a personal pan pizza box turned inside out (Not joking at all). I was not able to get my money back, but hopefully you will. Out of curiosity I cracked the cartridge open and there was gobs of black gunk on the PCB.

Out of curiosity did the case the game came in look legit. Sometimes fake DS games come in cheap flimsy cases with boxart that looks like it came staight from an ink jet printer.

The guy I purchased from was from the United States. Also there has been an outbreak of fake ds games on ebay (from both US and Hong Kong Sellers). So be careful!

 

[McKnight]

I bought pokemon fire red from an Amazon seller last summer and it turned out to be a bootleg. The "saved data" would delete itself when the system was turned off. I should have known something was wrong when it came shipped in a personal pan pizza box turned inside out (Not joking at all). I was not able to get my money back, but hopefully you will. Out of curiosity I cracked the cartridge open and there was gobs of black gunk on the PCB.

I did that with my pirated copies of Ruby and FireRed, before buying real copies.

Yes, the case for Pearl looked legitimate, save for the color of the plastic. When I compared it to my real copy of Pearl, I noticed that the real one's box had that sparkly stuff on it, whereas the bootleg case art was just paper.

 

[SpiritChaser]

I bought a used copy of Diamond at GameStop and mine fits that description too (where it has Dialga on the sticker). Plus the game box is clear, and the back of it states Team Galaxy. I'm pretty ticked off about this!

 

[Batbloodx]

I don't think I've owned a fake Pokemon game that I know of, but I have seen them on eBay before, and my old Silver version used to get corrupted a lot...

 

[Sykadelia]

I have been the victim of bootleg buys due to my sometimes over zealous nature of trying to catch 'em all. I bought Pokemon Emerald and FireRed from eBay almost a month ago and afterwards, it seemed a little bit suspicious to me that the seller, being an American, had an awfully bad case of Engrish in his description, his profile page, and his e-mail replies. The item description said that the item may "ship from anyone of our worldwide locations". I shrugged it off thinking such a detail was unimportant. How wrong I was. I proceeded to look at his feedback and all of them were good, but there were a couple that stated that the package was shipped from HK instead of NY. So naturally I got a bit suspicious.

I then googled "Hong Kong Pokemon games" and bam; words like "counterfeit" and "bootleg" littered the results. I knew I had been had. I eventually got the games delivered around last Friday and I knew they were fake. I opened up the box, which was well-done with all the holographic features and everything, and saw the cartridges, which did not have the holographic features and had a white circular device within the cartridge, which I knew from previous research was the dreaded internal battery of fake cartridges. I then put my Emerald into my DS and a message came up saying "The game can now be played", which would be a VERY weird message for a genuine game.

Anyway, I don't count on getting my money refunded by Paypal or eBay, but I did let both of them know that I bought counterfeits and they took down the listing not more than 20 minutes after I reported them. I sold off the cartridges on Craigslist by, let's say, "with-holding" some information, and got my money back that way. Two wrongs can make a right...right?

 

[7487857]

Yeah, buying games from China is a bad idea (although, you can find counterfeits in other countries as well...)

If the auction (Ebay) is 'Pokemon Platinum FREE SHIPPING, BUY IT NOW, $19.95, LOCATION: HONG KONG', then there's probably about a 95% chance that the game is a fake. Notice how they always use stock photos, instead of taking pictures of the actual cartridge.

Sometimes they don't even try to hide it. Here are some active ebay auctions for fake games, and all of these have bids, mind you:

-Arcoiris Version
-Quartz Version
-Chaos Black Version (LOL, the character on the cover is from Sonic the Hedgehog!)
-Darkcry Version

I feel sorry for all of the people (probably kids) who are tricked into buying these. I've already reported one of them to ebay.

Also be careful when buying older games, especially G/S/C versions. Sometimes people will try to sell them with dead batteries, meaning that you're game isn't going to save any data. If you're buying from people at swap meets/flea markets, always take your DS/Game Boy to test the game. I've seen people trying to sell broken games for 8 bucks.

 

[Sykadelia]

6 weeks later, Paypal has reimbursed me $42.98 for the counterfeit Pokemon Emerald and FireRed games I bought off of eBay. I never needed to send back the counterfeits because the Chinese seller never replied to the claim in the Paypal resolution centre. I guess the words I chose were too big for him to understand (which I sort of did on purpose). So this fiasco made me a $30 profit.