Gamer X believes it's the big Chinese pirates who are the real menace. "I can't have sold more than a few hundred CDs over the years," he told us. "If games firms want to stamp out piracy, they should focus their attention on where the real problem is. Me flogging my compilation CDs through mail order isn't going to make a huge dent in their profits."

Terry Anslow disagrees. "I don't listen to arguments by thieves and individuals who have no moral values whatsoever," he said. "They're criminals and have no legitimate voice while they continue to steal property. It has got to be realised that their efforts to legitimise their illegal conduct is an excuse which holds no water."

According to literature issued by the Federation Against Software Theft, formed in 1984 to combat the rising tide of counterfeit software, piracy is one of the reasons why games are so expensive. By FAST's reckoning, if you can stamp out piracy then games will come down in price. However, one of the excuses often given by those who play pirated games is that they can't afford to buy full-price, legal software in the first place.

"At £40 a pop, most games are totally out of my price range," one gamer told us. "I only work part-time and don't earn much more than that in a week. If I buy a game then it's a quarter of my wages gone. The only way I can afford the latest games is to get pirate copies from a friend of a friend." It's a classic vicious circle.

Nevertheless, ELSPA are at the forefront of the fight against piracy, having already expanded their Crime Unit to 11 full-time staff. In August, the organisation will fire an anti-piracy ad campaign squarely into the soft brains of the consumer. Partly funded from contributions by games firms, ELSPA will demonstrate how wrong piracy is, with slogans such as 'Don't Play With Pirates' and 'Game Piracy Is Worse Than Genocide', hoping it will discourage consumers from consuming pirated titles.

Will snappy slogans alone be enough to stop this diabolical scourge?

Continued next week...