I've seen a few throughout my life at friend's houses as a kid during the age of Limewire. Typically they were pretty good quality even though you'd see the odd person get up from their seat or hardcoded subtitles. Lately I've been curious about the history behind them and how they came to be.
Have there been well known release groups similar to the game cracking scene?
Have they always been mostly from one region?
Are they released strategically for one reason or another?
Have there been hidden methods to bust groups after a release such as steganography?
I'd be down to hear any facts about it you find interesting, stories, and if you have any articles or videos about the subject.
Back in the day, and probably even now, as I used to encounter them when I lived in the big city, cam copies were famous on the streets. It was the only way to get a bootleg copy while the movie was still in theatres but you didn’t want to go for whatever reason.
When I lived in the big city, in a not so great area, the guys used to be in the grocery store parking lot or barbers or smoke shops selling the DVDs and before that were selling VHS copies.
And then when LimeWire grew in popularity, people would upload those like they would any retail DVD. And then went on to torrents as those grew in popularity.
And it still continues today for similar reasons. People want the fame that comes with uploading the first copy online or the first decent quality.