Somali Pirates Threatening Western Videogame Shipments

Gamers are well used to reading about the repercussions of piracy in the videogame industry, but this story about piracy has one important distinction: it’s about real pirates. As Reuters reports, increased attacks by Somali pirates around the Horn of Africa are threatening shipping routes, which could interrupt supplies of videogame hardware and software in the West.

While Somali pirates have plagued the Horn of Africa for years, what’s of particular concern now is that they’ve been encroaching into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, imperiling access to the Suez Canal -- a major shipping route that connects Europe to the Middle East and Asia. It’s used by firms to transport oil, gas, coal, toys, and yes, videogames, but the attacks have gotten so frequent that firms are considering diverting shipments around Africa to the south, through the Cape of Good Hope instead. Doing so, according to PC World, could increase transit times by up to three weeks.

"Despite all the publicity over piracy it will really hit home when consumers in the West find they haven’t got their Nintendo gifts this Christmas," said Sam Dawson, of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, to Reuters. "If there isn’t a let up and active intervention by navies in the region, the impact on trade will come within weeks or months because we’ve gone from one attack every couple of weeks to four in a single day."

While the opportunities for pirate jokes are tempting, the situation is in fact gravely serious -- some of the shipments being attacked by Somali pirates are even aid shipments to war-torn Somalia itself. Reuters reports that the British killed two pirates this week as part of increased efforts by foreign navies to curb the surge in attacks, but Somali pirates continue to seize boats all the same.

As for whether this will actually affect your ability to find a Wii in stores this holiday season (if you could find one anyway, that is), PC World makes a good point -- this will likely affect European shipments more than the U.S., as shipments to the U.S. out of Asia likely go east rather than through Africa to the west.