Why are fake Gameboy games bad?

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Chances are you are not going to have any difference in quality at all.

I play them casually in an emulator from time to time. They are not "bad" per say. It's just that you will not have multiplayer (sometimes even yes) and that you do not support the devs.

I personally do try the "full" versions of games before I buy them..

I just recently found out that all 5 of my pokemon Gameboy Advance games are fakes ffs.

But can anyone explain to me the difference between the original and fakes in terms of gaming experience? Surely they are the same game, it's just the fake has a new internal battery and an unoriginal cartridge.

Does anyone still play retro GBA games, lol, and know why the pirated copies are "bad"?

I know from looking on eBay that counterfeit GBA Pokemon games are hard to spot and many of them are fakes; there are characteristics to look for on the cartridge cover art and the cartridges themselves. I have never played a fake GBA game but supposedly the game will boot up fine but will fail to save progress, graphical errors or anomalies and crashes are common.

Last Summer I actually indulged in some nostalgia and bought an old GBA SP and bought Pokemon Red and Blue. I never owned a copy myself when it first came out (my parents were poor) but I remember playing it on my friends GameBoy and thinking it was the best thing ever; many years later it still was immensely fun to play, even the 8bit music still sounded great. I then found my old DS Lite which had a GBA slot and I bought Fire Red and Leaf Green from eBay and honestly, it was a blast playing them, not least of all because the DS Lite has a backlit screen unlike the GBA so the display was much better.

I actually ended up selling it which I really regret now. I'm obviously way out of the target market age for Pokemon but the games still have a fond place in my gaming heart. I do still have Pokemon X for my 3DS XL but it doesn't seem to have the charm of the 2D games; perhaps I haven't spend enough time playing it. If you have a DS lite or any GBA handhelds my advice is to keep them because you never know when an old retro bargain might pop up on eBay, as long as it's legitimate.

The difference is huge. Its the difference between being able to trade up to a gen 4 game, like pearl, and being able to battle your pokemon against your friends. I purcahsed two ds lite's with two emeralds. I gave one to my partner and we worked through it collecting pokemon so we could add them to our pearl and diamond respectively. We came to realise that we wasted all that time with emerald since we cant transfer our Pokemon over as their fakes. We only wasted our time in gen 3 so we could have pokemon to trasnfear over. Im not spending more money on buying 2 gba consouls just so we can then buy two real emeralds,(if thats even likley to be found) just so we can transfear our pokemon in our fake coppies to move up to battle. My advice, start at pearl and diamond, leave gen 3 alone since its riddled with fakes, and make sure your gen 4 games are real, go to game stop with a 14 day return policy.