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The popularity of the Nintendo Wii is something which has never been seen before in the world of gaming. The system works like no other and it shouldn’t shock anyone that there is a lot of interest in copying Wii games to make backups in case of damage or loss of the original game discs.

While these games come on a disc that looks a lot like your burnable CDs, they can’t just be copied the same way you’d rip a music CD. It’s a little more complicated than that. Here’s a guide to tell you the basics of copying Wii games, as well as the circumstances when you should and shouldn’t do it.

The software which you use to rip and burn CDs doesn’t work to copy Wii games. Nero, Roxio and other common CD burning software can’t copy these discs due to the copy protection which is encoded on the disc. This encryption keeps your computer from reading the disc.

Like any other copy protection developed to date, someone quickly cracked the encryption. You can find programs which are capable of reading the encrypted Wii game discs.

Once you’ve installed this kind of software, making a copy of the game is relatively easy - your computer is suddenly able to understand the data that was unreadable before. This is true for games on just about any system, including the PS3, Xbox 360, and the Wii.

Even some PC games use encryption that can be broken by these programs. Should you own more than one game system, this software can help you produce backup copies for all of them, not just your Wii.

With this encryption breaking software, you can make a disc image of the Wii game and copy it on to your hard drive. You can use your regular CD burning software to make a copy of this disc just as you would when copying any other CD or DVD.

These programs often feature burning and copying capabilities along with their decryption abilities. Using these built in tools, you’ll have a smaller chance of burning errors when copying Wii games.

Thanks to these new software tools, copying Wii games is not quick and easy. It’s always a good idea to have backups of your favorite games in case of accidents, theft or loss. Happy gaming!