The Armati pirate cassettes for the Commodore 64
Armati was a company that in the 80s published pirate video games in all of Italy, passing them off as originals, simply by changing their name, credits and the packaging. It was possible at that time to do so as there was no law against piracy, and it was therefore possible to market other people's video games simply by making small changes.
It was practically industrial piracy that made the game arrive in many shops throughout the national territory and that was sold in the sunlight as an original video game even if it was not.
Mario Arioti was the owner of Armati, one of the largest Italian pirate cassette duplication company in Italy. A single game was copied directly from the originals but was customized with special loaders and banners that advertised its company when loading.
Quality color prints and excellent boxes completed the product, much appreciated by collectors and users of that time. Without paying a penny in royalties, the tapes had an enormous distribution. He managed to sell 1.3 million copies a year through a widespread and well-organized distribution.
The cost could reach 12.000 lire, a price in line with that of many original games. Arioti also created compilations with double packs. Mario's son, Riccardo Arioti, then created a partnership with the journalist Francesco Carlà with whom he produced and distributed for Simulmondo until 1988. In 1989 he rebranded the company as Ital Video SRL, and began to publish legal software.
With his professional duplicating plants now famous all over the world, Mario and Riccardo Arioti made the production line available for other companies as Genias, Fabbri Editore and Mastertronic. They also produced Italian games, such as bingo and bocce, as well as tutorials and school software.
Armati cassettes still appeal to many Commodore 64 collectors and lovers today and are highly sought after.
The craziest cover ever: Donald Duck from Armati for the Commodore 64
Incredible but true, in the second half of the 80s a Donald Duck video game was marketed in Italian shops where on the cover you can see him reading a book with a title that in Italian translates exactly as "IL FROCIO".
We are talking about the pirate version of the 1984 Donald Duck's Playground game, later re-released by Amati around 1987 as Donald Duck, also changing the cover.
Donald Duck's Playground is an educational video game developed by Al Lowe in 1984 on behalf of Sierra, whose protagonist is Donald Duck, a famous Disney character and was intended for children between 7 and 11 years old.
Donald wants to buy some toys to build a playground for his grandchildren Qui, Quo and Qua. To earn money and be able to buy toys, he will have to do four different jobs in various areas of Duckburg. The materials to be purchased are sold by three shops managed respectively by Minni, Mickey and Pippo.
And in all this the Armati presents the game by taking the image of Donald Duck from a comic in which he knows how to read a book carefully and modifying it by putting the writing "THE FAG" on the cover of the book written in large characters so that it was clearly visible.
In the sense of all this it is difficult to find, it is simply absurd that a company has published a video game for children with such a cover, imagine today that media uproar would be unleashed.
Among other things, the company was certainly convinced of the writing, because in the re-release of the cassette they slightly corrected all the writings with a silver background, adjusting the position that was originally a little misaligned.
And to think that this was the cover of the original game that was pirated by Armati!
