For pc, very. I spent hours downloading rips of games off a BBS. One of the few games I bought was duke nukem 3d and that's just because I wanted the build level editor that I couldn't find a download of.

For consoles, less so. I had a pirated "100 in 1" nes cart of from China but all the games were crap. Cartridge copying wasn't a thing.

I vaguely remember a n64 device that could load cartridge images off a zip drive or something. Nobody had one though.

Piracy became bigger again when the ps1 mod chip came out and we had brand new cd burners. Dreamcast too.