Recollection 02 ch15 Belgian Cracking Scene
A look at a part of the Belgian cracking scene in the past
by Commander/Role
The first 10 years of the Commodore 64 were mostly dominated by the cracking scene. There were demos from time to time, but cracking was priority for many persons/groups. And this was just the same for the Belgian c64 scene...
There were several ways of cracking games to be mentioned as first releases. I do not know the working of every Belgian cracking group in the past, but I will write some information I know from several Belgian cracking groups in the past.
One way were the people who had their own computer business and who got the games at first hand from the dealers. These persons/groups were not always the first in cracking a game, but 50 % of their cracking was a first release.
A more efficient way for some Belgian cracking groups was having a good contact with a games dealer. How? Just paying the dealer some more money for sending a fresh incoming game to the cracker of a group. Yes, it was possible to buy some of these dealers. They did a lot for you for some extra money. I remember that a person had to pay 80 Euro for only one game to get it very fast at home in the early nineties.
Also the boards helped. Many cracking groups imported NTSC games via the boards, PAL-fixed these games, and first-released them.
Then there was also the nasty way of getting games and game-previews from first hand, the producers of the game themselves. Some software firms handled games and game-previews over to a cracker, because some people of these software firms were member of a cracking group! But in Belgian this happened not that much because of the very less software firms.
In the later years, cracking groups started to code games on their own to get a first release in the cracking charts.
I especially do not mention any names of persons and groups. These persons and groups who are connected to this information, can better tell their personal history to the scene. This text is mentioned as general information so you know how most things about cracking worked in Belgium in the past...
