CS.RIN.RU, likely the largest forum dedicated to video game piracy globally, is facing a significant challenge. With a reported 17 years of operation under its belt, the site’s sponsor has decided to cease funding. As a consequence, this haven for gaming pirates will now have to rely on user donations to sustain its operations.
Downloading movies and TV shows is relatively straightforward, with content ripped and shared online by release groups. However, for video game pirates, the process is more complex. Games must be cracked, which can be daunting for novice users, even with provided tools. As a result, communities of video game pirates have thrived, offering support and sharing the latest games.
One of the largest communities is CS.RIN.RU, also known as the Steam Underground Community. Despite its name, the site is accessible to anyone with a web browser, but access to pirated games and cracks requires registration. With over 560,000 registered users, it’s a key platform for accessing pirated games. The forum is heavily moderated, with staff enforcing strict rules. This makes it a valuable resource, attracting knowledgeable video game pirates.
CS.RIN.RU is facing a significant challenge as its long-time sponsor, the owner of Russian Information Network (RIN), can no longer afford to financially support the forum. After 17 years of sponsorship, the forum’s operator announced that they can no longer renew the server subscription due to financial constraints.
The announcement explains that the forum’s performance and security requirements necessitate hosting on a full dedicated server, which is costly. Despite efforts to operate on a tight budget, the current server is already at its limits. The forum will be moving to a new server at the beginning of May, but the financial burden will fall on the users if they want to keep the site online.
This marks a significant shift for CS.RIN.RU, which has relied on sponsorship for its hosting needs. Now, it will have to rely on user donations to cover the costs of hosting and maintaining the forum.
“Around this time last year, we moved to a new server so that the RIN owner could continue to afford hosting us and for various technical improvements. I have recently learned that he can no longer afford to renew our server’s subscription. Unfortunately, this was bound to happen sooner or later,” the announcement reads.
“Due to our performance and security requirements, it is not possible to host this forum at just any provider or on anything less than a full dedicated server. In fact, our current dedicated server that was rented on a tight budget is already at its limits and significant efforts were put in to make it work. We will be moving to a new server at the beginning of May.”
While the move to new hardware appears certain, things will have to change moving forward. CS.RIN.RU’s operators say that if the users want to keep the site online, they will have to cough up the money.
“We, the staff, have put great thought into figuring out how to keep this forum online. Sadly, we have determined that we will not be able to finance the kind of hosting this forum requires by ourselves, even with the crappiest, bare-minimum server we could find. This means that come June, we have to rely on donations from you, the community,” the statement continues.
“This is a significant announcement and we know that some of you will not agree with this step and truth be told, we don’t want to have ask this either, but we see no other way.”
The operators of CS.RIN.RU aren’t asking for much. In fact, they estimate the overall costs to be around 1,200 euros per year to keep the community intact. However, like many piracy-focused sites that rely on donations, the big issue is how to receive that money from members without compromising the security of the people accepting the funds. As a result, cryptocurrency is the only available option.
It’s doubtful that this will cause too many problems for the site but it will almost certainly reduce the number of donations from willing parties. Despite being able to successfully download games and cracks, some users seem reluctant to learn about cryptocurrency, even though they have the money to donate. However, world-famous repacker FitGirl thinks that it shouldn’t be a problem and is preparing to contribute.
“People who still relies [sic] on fiat seem very strange to me. I’m using crypto for all my warez needs for YEARS. Not a single cent from my banks ever touched my hoster, my seedbox, my VPN. All is paid in crypto,” the piracy star wrote this morning.
“It’s just as complex as PayPal in 2020. Once you setup it, it’s sooooooo easy to make payments and accept donations (in my case). Hope we will gather needed amount, will chip my part later today.”