# London police takes down Blackcat-Games



## Chary (Oct 19, 2016)

Dang...that's a horrible loss. I hope someone has a backup of the Torrents...there were a lot of cool things on that site.


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## Subtle Demise (Oct 19, 2016)

Don't use domains from copyright-friendly regions.


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## Deleted User (Oct 19, 2016)

To be 100% honest, I've actually never heard of Blackcat Games. I get my vidya torrents from a private torrent site.


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## DeoNaught (Oct 19, 2016)

Ive never heard of these sites, If I did I thought they were fake, I only use that *another* site


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## Tom Bombadildo (Oct 19, 2016)

Tomato Hentai said:


> To be 100% honest, I've actually never heard of Blackcat Games. I get my vidya torrents from a private torrent site.


BCG is a private torrent site  

Shame, I used to use them every now and again to grab some of the more rare stuff.


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## Meteor7 (Oct 19, 2016)

Torrent sites get taken down left and right in the name of copyright protection, but malware distributing sites using copyrighted content to advertise themselves are left for the people to police on their own. Why, exactly?


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## Deleted User (Oct 19, 2016)

Meteor7 said:


> Torrent sites get taken down left and right in the name of copyright protection, but malware distributing sites using copyrighted content to advertise themselves are left for the people to police on their own. Why, exactly?


Because distributing copyrighted content is more important than luring people in with copyrighted content and infecting them with malware, apparently.


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## Cyan (Oct 19, 2016)

if you look at the sponsors, they are (almost) all about music.
Nowhere it's related to games.


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## Flame (Oct 19, 2016)

WAIT!

i didn't finish my downloading my download.

wait a minute i live in London.

*takes out harddrive out*

*puts it in the microwave*


RIP in peaces hard drive.


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## Chary (Oct 19, 2016)

According to a mod on reddit, a "verified source" has claimed the following:



> A source has disclosed to me that the own has been raided, all equipment seized and arrested and that they've been under investigation since 2013. The site will be closing down ASAP.


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## BurningDesire (Oct 19, 2016)

Chary said:


> According to a mod on reddit, a "verified source" has claimed the following:


R.I.P


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## Cyan (Oct 19, 2016)

since 2013?
how long did it took them to decide they wanted to raid it?
they didn't have enough proof that the torrent were illegal?


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## Chary (Oct 19, 2016)

Cyan said:


> since 2013?
> how long did it took them to decide they wanted to raid it?


I'm not sure how London PD operates, but if it's anything like American police, they have to file a warrant, do a lot of paperwork, and have higher-ups verify that they can seize property.


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## AlanJohn (Oct 19, 2016)

Nice too see the british pornographic* phonographic* industry doing their job.


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## BurningDesire (Oct 19, 2016)

chaosrunner said:


> am i the only one that uses for thier games?


You can't link those sites

Edit: Exclamation points and 3s - ur good - well maybe not who knows


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## Deleted User (Oct 19, 2016)

chaosrunner said:


> am i the only one that uses that iso site and that paradise site for thier games?


No, but the two of them don't have as many games as they could, and I prefer torrenting over downloading off of sites like MEGA where possible.


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## cearp (Oct 19, 2016)

damn it!
it was active this morning when i was searching, i bookmarked some wii u games... 

i have been using it for years, super power user etc... scary stuff.


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## chaosrunner (Oct 19, 2016)

cant u use webarchive to load the site


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## Harsky (Oct 19, 2016)

Blackcat Games were SUPER strict when it comes to maintaining seeding ratio. I remember getting games a day after they were released but couldn't maintain the upload ratio due to crappy upload speed so I lost my account a week later. 

Still surprised they're around until this.


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## Deleted User (Oct 19, 2016)

chaosrunner said:


> cant u use webarchive to load the site


If it's a private torrent site, you likely have to log in to view torrents, and if you have to log in, you're screwed.


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## Meteor7 (Oct 19, 2016)

Tomato Hentai said:


> Because distributing copyrighted content is more important than luring people in with copyrighted content and infecting them with malware, apparently.


That's pretty much what I was getting at, that governments mainly put effort into satisfying the companies that supply them money rather than serving the people.


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## cearp (Oct 19, 2016)

the site nearly died out so many times because of money issues, at least it's just the domain so it seems it's not really a big issue, i hope the owners (stoi?) don't get in trouble etc though


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## Cyan (Oct 19, 2016)

cearp said:


> i hope the owners (stoi?) don't get in trouble etc though


or any of the admin/users.


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## grossaffe (Oct 19, 2016)

Harsky said:


> Blackcat Games were SUPER strict when it comes to maintaining seeding ratio. I remember getting games a day after they were released but couldn't maintain the upload ratio due to crappy upload speed so I lost my account a week later.
> 
> Still surprised they're around until this.


Their seed-point system that depends on the amount of time you seed should have made maintaining your ratio doable.


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## Bubsy Bobcat (Oct 19, 2016)

well damn, i never heard of this site.


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## Pecrow (Oct 19, 2016)

Best site EVER!, I had lost my account when I moved countries and did not have internet access for a long time so the account was deleted do to inactivity. I was never able to get another account again, but that was the best torrent site I ever used!


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## Cyan (Oct 19, 2016)

I thought it was one of the biggest and best known. I'm surprise some users didn't heard of it  (it means we did a good job hiding site names here?)

gbatemp users are only vouching for *that iso* website, full of ads and issues and drama...
blackcat covered a LOT of consoles (and not games only, also OST or game guide, etc.) and had old, unknown and rare gems available.

is it the music part of the site which is at fault here? Because it's ALWAYS the music industry which is complaining and filling suits.
they provide legal website solution to find the content, but they can't provide what doesn't exist and is not sold anymore.


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## Harsky (Oct 19, 2016)

grossaffe said:


> Their seed-point system that depends on the amount of time you seed should have made maintaining your ratio doable.


Welp, I guess I squandered my chance of being a member of BCG.


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## kingraa777 (Oct 19, 2016)

I used to be a black
-cat


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## Issac (Oct 19, 2016)

Chary said:


> I'm not sure how *London PD *operates, but if it's anything like American police, they have to file a warrant, do a lot of paperwork, and have higher-ups verify that they can seize property.


City of London PD*
Considering how weird other things in City of London is, I bet their police department is slow too


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## Reecey (Oct 19, 2016)

Thanks @Cyan you could of let me know I would of just took the site names out or you could of edited it yourself. RIP BCG!!!


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## MontyQ (Oct 19, 2016)

no wonder I cant log in


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## Jayro (Oct 19, 2016)

Never heard of them. Good riddance.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Cyan said:


> since 2013?
> how long did it took them to decide they wanted to raid it?
> they didn't have enough proof that the torrent were illegal?


Torrents themselves aren't illegal. Its the copyrighted materials they download that is illegal.


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## ov3rkill (Oct 19, 2016)

I immediately panicked when that screenshot appeared. haha.
This is one of the best video games source especially for old and rare stuffs.
Plus, there's the seed points system.


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## Sirius64 (Oct 19, 2016)

Oh, wow. I hadn't thought of that site in ages. I remember it being one of the only reliable places for GameCube games, back in the day.

Here's hoping for a speedy recovery.


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## andyhappypants (Oct 19, 2016)

Jayro said:


> Never heard of them. Good riddance.
> 
> --------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
> 
> ...


Good riddance?? 

One of the the best game torrent sites ever! Used them for 8+ years!


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## Plstic (Oct 19, 2016)

eh, not really a loss, site was very very outdated. Gazelle Game's is much better.


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## enarky (Oct 19, 2016)

Dammit! Fuck this shit!



Cyan said:


> gbatemp users are only vouching for *that iso* website, full of ads and issues and drama...


Exactly! Taking down legit sites like BCG just seeds an environment where shady people thrive, an environment that's all about money and drama.


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## tbb043 (Oct 19, 2016)

Tomato Hentai said:


> No, but the two of them don't have as many games as they could, and I prefer torrenting over downloading off of sites like MEGA where possible.



I prefer the opposite. Don't have to worry about maintaining ratio with MEGA. Some of the other direct download hosts are terrible, though.


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## BORTZ (Oct 19, 2016)

Never used it, but heard about it. I think i got an invite once, but it expired quickly. I was past using torrents for a long time anyways though.


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## octopus (Oct 19, 2016)

Now I feel bad for cursing at that stupid captcha while I tried to login to BCG today.


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## callmebob (Oct 19, 2016)

Damn it! Another one bites the dust. Looks like the good ol days are slipping away.


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## raulpica (Oct 19, 2016)

Harsky said:


> Blackcat Games were SUPER strict when it comes to maintaining seeding ratio. I remember getting games a day after they were released but couldn't maintain the upload ratio due to crappy upload speed so I lost my account a week later.
> 
> Still surprised they're around until this.


Well, I won't miss them. They should've understood that some countries (*cough* Italy *cough*) have super-shitty non-symmetrical uploads and we can't mantain insane seeding ratios like they wanted even if we were to seed 24/7.


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## p1ngpong (Oct 19, 2016)

Never used them myself but its always sad to hear of sites like this going down especially if they do in fact host rarer torrents like others have said BCG did. Do not underestimate the service communities like that provide towards preserving obscure digital media that if it wasn't for "piracy" would be impossible for us to experience legitimately.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Oct 19, 2016)

raulpica said:


> Well, I won't miss them. They should've understood that some countries (*cough* Italy *cough*) have super-shitty non-symmetrical uploads and we can't mantain insane seeding ratios like they wanted even if we were to seed 24/7.


...which is what Seed points were for, as mentioned by grossaffe already  

You don't need fancy internet, just a few days of seeding whatever and you're fine. It's been that way for years, back when I was using potato 3mbps and I managed fine


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## raulpica (Oct 19, 2016)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> ...which is what Seed points were for, as mentioned by grossaffe already
> 
> You don't need fancy internet, just a few days of seeding whatever and you're fine. It's been that way for years, back when I was using potato 3mbps and I managed fine


A few days that could've been spent _*downloading*_ other stuff, somewhere else


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## Valatros (Oct 19, 2016)

Aw, sad to see it gone. I use GG as well, so I'm not at a major loss, but BCG was so much better for seed ratio on older stuff. Just noone to upload to for some of that on GG, so seed points was handy. To those who had troubles with keeping a ratio on BCG... you clearly joined the site without reading how it works. Leave the torrent program open a few days and every torrent would count as fully seeded back regardless, more or less. Hopefully stoi and them aren't in legal trouble, though. Not expecting it to come back from this, to be honest; they've been having enough money issues that this on top of it'd make even the most dedicated consider throwing in the towel.


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## megatron_lives (Oct 19, 2016)

This sucks and makes me a little nervous. I had downloaded quite a few bits and pieces over the last few days....

What do people speculate will happen if the police now have black cats member's details and activity logs?


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## Joe88 (Oct 19, 2016)

I was a member there well over 5 years ago and I used torrent seed cheat programs to bypass the S:L ratio since my internet was pretty shit back than, it would takes weeks to reseed a 360 game fully
it was pretty good but eventually my account got deactivated for inactivity since I didnt download anything for 1 month, I have just been using public sites ever since without issues


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## Valatros (Oct 19, 2016)

megatron_lives said:


> This sucks and makes me a little nervous. I had downloaded quite a few bits and pieces over the last few days....
> 
> What do people speculate will happen if the police now have black cats member's details and activity logs?


Straight up, nothing. Pursuing torrent downloaders is an absolute waste of time, and besides, its the _london police._ 99% of BCG's userbase is so far out of their jurisdiction that _our_ government might actually be able to make a legal case against them even _keeping that information._


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## megatron_lives (Oct 19, 2016)

Valatros said:


> Straight up, nothing. Pursuing torrent downloaders is an absolute waste of time, and besides, its the _london police._ 99% of BCG's userbase is so far out of their jurisdiction that _our_ government might actually be able to make a legal case against them even _keeping that information._



That's reassuring and as I expected. However I am from the UK

I suppose I am mostly concerned about major uploaders and other staff members


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## medoli900 (Oct 19, 2016)

AlanJohn said:


> Nice too see the british pornographic* phonographic* industry doing their job.


I actually read pornographic industry. I tought you were joking about the phonograpric part, dammit.



Meteor7 said:


> That's pretty much what I was getting at, that governments mainly put effort into satisfying the companies that supply them money rather than serving the people.


I don't know if distibuting malware is illegal though, since they aren't copyrighted. Shutting down these kind of website is probably way more complicated than torrent piracy sites. Heck, it took three years to shut down BCG, while it was blatant copyright infringement.


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## DinohScene (Oct 19, 2016)

Damn.
RIP all rare stuff and debug/beta stuff ;/


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## Vahnyyz (Oct 20, 2016)

That really sucks, and there wasn't a repository or something on a undernet site?


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## Naderino (Oct 20, 2016)

I kinda have mixed feelings about this... The site had amazing content (I remember those exclusive guitar hero mods for Wii). However, the mods on that site were complete jerks and didn't even have a warning system... I got banned for such a silly reason without any sign or warning. I don't really feel that bad for them because of that lol. Then again, that just my insignificant opinion >.<


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## Deleted User (Oct 20, 2016)

Naderino said:


> I kinda have mixed feelings about this... The site had amazing content (I remember those exclusive guitar hero mods for Wii). However, the mods on that site were complete jerks and didn't even have a warning system... I got banned for such a silly reason without any sign or warning. I don't really feel that bad for them because of that lol. Then again, that just my insignificant opinion >.<


What did you get banned for, if you don't mind my asking?


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## noctis90210 (Oct 20, 2016)

Harsky said:


> Blackcat Games were SUPER strict when it comes to maintaining seeding ratio. I remember getting games a day after they were released but couldn't maintain the upload ratio due to crappy upload speed so I lost my account a week later.
> 
> Still surprised they're around until this.


but they have a workaround for you to get a 1:1 ratio even theres no leecher when you seed...
we just need to seed the torrent for a certain hours/days depending on the size of the torrent to get the 1:1 ratio.
they call it seed points... i hope other private torrent sites will implement seed points rules too...

anyway, the domain name is only raided, hope server still intact...


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## Jayro (Oct 20, 2016)

enarky said:


> Dammit! Fuck this shit!
> 
> 
> Exactly! Taking down legit sites like BCG just seeds an environment where shady people thrive, an environment that's all about money and drama.


Ads? Never seen em.


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## Fugelmir (Oct 20, 2016)

This was an awesome place to get uber rare games, but extremely hard to sign up.   After having been banned several times for failing to keep up my seed ratio, I can't help but feel a little bit of glee over this.


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## jalaneme (Oct 20, 2016)

Harsky said:


> Blackcat Games were SUPER strict when it comes to maintaining seeding ratio. I remember getting games a day after they were released but couldn't maintain the upload ratio due to crappy upload speed so I lost my account a week later.
> 
> Still surprised they're around until this.



Hence my reply good riddance to them seeding back the games i download was a nightmare, i had a 1mbit download and 750k upload back then it took so long to upload and i couldn't use my computer, they eventually banned me but i didn't care tbh i used demonoid for a while and found other alternatives.



Siriu64 said:


> Oh, wow. I hadn't thought of that site in ages. I remember it being one of the only reliable places for GameCube games, back in the day.
> 
> Here's hoping for a speedy recovery.



And wii games, used to use them a lot back when modchips were a thing.



Joe88 said:


> I was a member there well over 5 years ago and I used torrent seed cheat programs to bypass the S:L ratio since my internet was pretty shit back than, it would takes weeks to reseed a 360 game fully
> it was pretty good but eventually my account got deactivated for inactivity since I didnt download anything for 1 month, I have just been using public sites ever since without issues



Haha! I thought i was the only one using those seed programs XD it was the reason i got banned


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## Draggy (Oct 20, 2016)

I'm Draggy from blackcats, was on the site almost from the very beginning, so shocked to see these news, I feel so sorry for stoi, he really doesn't deserve such severe punishment for being gaming enthusiast =/

Is there any way to be invited to gazelle games now?


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## FAST6191 (Oct 20, 2016)

I don't think personally it is going to trouble me, mainly as I don't do torrents, but I can see how it might trouble others. I don't know if we will see any kind of architecture breakdown as I am slightly curious as to the security setup here or if it is was running fairly openly.



Issac said:


> City of London PD*
> Considering how weird other things in City of London is, I bet their police department is slow too


That probably warrants expansion as the City of London (a small section in the middle of London that is a rather unique case in the UK at this point) is different to greater London which is covered by the metropolitan police aka the met, and probably the usual one you would hear about as they tend to be the ones involved in all the jackbooted fun since Northern Ireland became a tad more peaceful.
Might as well do it in video form



I am sort of surprised pipcu did this, but then again they do have a bit of a history of it https://torrentfreak.com/pipcu-raids-pirate-tv-streaming-operation-three-arrested-160811/ and https://torrentfreak.com/?s=pipcu for other stuff so I guess if you find a police force you can work with...
With that said the enforcement of boring stuff like this is a farce in most of the other police forces and special interest police units in the UK and customs, the one I see doing a lot of stuff like this in other countries, has rather bigger problems so eh.


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## megatron_lives (Oct 20, 2016)

I mentioned this to my wife and she is getting nervous about my account. We're in the UK and we don't use a VPN. Does anyone have any advise regarding what trouble we could be in with the city of London having our data? 

I assume they are only interested in shutting the site down and making the owners responsible rather than as valatros says to seek out all users.


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## Issac (Oct 20, 2016)

FAST6191 said:


> That probably warrants expansion as the City of London (a small section in the middle of London ... snipsnip


Yeah, I meant those Court of Aldermen and everything surrounding becoming the the Right Honourable The Lord Mayor of The City of London... Considering how intricate that is, I was joking about how the police work would also be slow.


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## retrofan_k (Oct 20, 2016)

megatron_lives said:


> I mentioned this to my wife and she is getting nervous about my account. We're in the UK and we don't use a VPN. Does anyone have any advise regarding what trouble we could be in with the city of London having our data?
> 
> 
> I assume they are only interested in shutting the site down and making the owners responsible rather than as valatros says to seek out all users.



Top seeders and major contributors have been known to be investigated in past raids on other sites. 

If you wanna be safer, buy a premium VPN and try to be anonymous as possible,  if you want to continue to torrent.  Stay clear of open trackers as that is a open door to the law.  It's not the same anymore and RIP old Internet.


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## ceelo (Oct 20, 2016)

omg Ive been a member of BCG since around 2006. It had the most popular down to the most obscure games for any system. It literally is the best gaming place I know. and it was one of the more secretive ones too.. They tried a lot of stuff like fake pages and in a search bar or something you type in a special word your account is assigned that would unlock the actual page. They stopped doing that a while ago, and just optioned for a CAPTCHA :\. To know the place shut down that I visit every few days for eight years is such a horrible feeling. not just the torrents but the community it had. The people I helped, the torrents I upped, the ones Ive taken. Ugh.... This sucks so hard. harder than when KAT went down, and that was public.


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## megatron_lives (Oct 20, 2016)

Thanks retrofan_k, that's good to know.

I feel a little better if I can at least reassure my wife with this! We did have about 20 items seeding over the past few days at least, but I won't say I was a major contributor!

Thanks again 

I'll certainly miss Blackcats - almost 10 years I was a member :-(


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## mgrev (Oct 20, 2016)

Tomato Hentai said:


> To be 100% honest, I've actually never heard of Blackcat Games. I get my vidya torrents from a private torrent site.


same.


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## Naderino (Oct 20, 2016)

Tomato Hentai said:


> What did you get banned for, if you don't mind my asking?



They ceased my account for inactivity, which I can get.   Then I created a new account and reached out to a mod to see they could reactivate my old one, then he permabanned me for creating a dupe lol. I was a donor on top of that


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## Joom (Oct 20, 2016)

Why are people complaining about seeding? If you can't do it don't use a private tracker. Honestly, you shouldn't even use one without a seedbox. I mean seriously, you shouldn't even be on the site to begin with if seeding is a problem. Stick to public trackers. 

OT: Shit. Though BCG has gone down before and I suspect it will be back. Though they might go the same route as Underground Gamer and affiliates and just shut down forever, which sucks because it's hard to come by niche trackers like this that still maintain retro scene releases.


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## driverdis (Oct 20, 2016)

So, they ceased the domain, not the servers. People who downloaded stuff should be fine unless they get the server.


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## happydance (Oct 22, 2016)

damn... been a member there as lang as I can remember, there's a lot of hard to find content there.


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## Subtle Demise (Oct 22, 2016)

Harsky said:


> Blackcat Games were SUPER strict when it comes to maintaining seeding ratio. I remember getting games a day after they were released but couldn't maintain the upload ratio due to crappy upload speed so I lost my account a week later.
> 
> Still surprised they're around until this.


Seedpoints?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Joom said:


> Why are people complaining about seeding? If you can't do it don't use a private tracker. Honestly, you shouldn't even use one without a seedbox. I mean seriously, you shouldn't even be on the site to begin with if seeding is a problem. Stick to public trackers.
> 
> OT: Shit. Though BCG has gone down before and I suspect it will be back. Though they might go the same route as Underground Gamer and affiliates and just shut down forever, which sucks because it's hard to come by niche trackers like this that still maintain retro scene releases.


A lot of those sites have come back under different names.


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## TeamScriptKiddies (Oct 23, 2016)

megatron_lives said:


> Thanks retrofan_k, that's good to know.
> 
> I feel a little better if I can at least reassure my wife with this! We did have about 20 items seeding over the past few days at least, but I won't say I was a major contributor!
> 
> ...


If you've been been a member for 10 years and yet to have any legal woes, you probably won't. If they wanted you, they would've snatched up your IP long ago in the swarm (most lekely an anti-piracy org not law enforcement) and wouldve pursued you already. As some have suggested, they might pursue sime of the top contributors, as well as staff, but by the sounds of it, you dont fall into either category. Theyre main goal was to take the site offline...


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## pchelata (Oct 30, 2016)

So Blackcats Games is dead apparently. Where do I go for games now? It was my last dependable site


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## Subtle Demise (Nov 1, 2016)

So the tracker still seems to be up. My torrents are still seeding with no errors.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Subtle Demise said:


> So the tracker still seems to be up. My torrents are still seeding with no errors.


Oops, nvvm, it's down.


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## retrofan_k (Nov 2, 2016)

Tbh, I wouldn't seed if the trackers are still up unless you are using a good VPN and other means to remain anonymously.


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## TeamScriptKiddies (Nov 3, 2016)

retrofan_k said:


> Tbh, I wouldn't seed if the trackers are still up unless you are using a good VPN and other means to remain anonymously.



If you got the money to spend, you could always pay to rent a seedbox (using BTC) so you don't have to worry about seeding yourself . Also I replied to your pm


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