This is during the era when the N64, PS1, SNES, Dreamcast or Sega Genesis were popular. Games back then were released physically via disc or cartridge, meaning distributors or publishers would’ve implemented anti-piracy (like Lenslok) measures onto physical copies but some knew how to tamper with anti-piracy if they have a computer using other sources of capturing data (floppy disks).
Also, games at the time were ‘simple’ to torrent but with a catch (dial up was still a thing at the time meaning downloads could take a while if you have a PC). Discs were more straight forward than “torrenting” cartridges (unless you have connections with the manufacturer on smuggling circuit boards). Like with movies, games that came on discs were “torrented” through CDs by using a PC.
I never heard of pirating NES/SNES/Genesis back then, so I don’t think it was very common. Renting was pretty cheap, and you could always trade or borrow games with friends. We didn’t get a computer until the late 90s when the WWW was taking off, but yeah, pirating games is probably one of the first things I did. Downloading a large number of RAR files from warez sites over dial-up, taking multiple days, IIRC. And ROMs and emulation. Someone in my school would put cracked PC games on a shared network drive, so you could play them in the library. Later, I went to a technology focused high school, and we’d all play (cracked) Half-Life or Unreal Tournament multiplayer before class started every day (usually with the teacher).