While several free emulators for the PlayStation were in development at that time (mainly PSEmu and the early development of ePSXe), none of them featured the compatibility or the speed of bleem! at that time.
To combat software piracy of the small downloadable emulator, the user had to buy the Bleem!-CD. A CD containing about 35 MB with a DirectX distributable and the actual version of Bleem! available at the time of the CD's printing. The rest of the CD was only for copy protection and nearly impossible to copy at that time.
Further updates to the emulator were free, until the company ceased operation several years later, due to lawsuits from Sony among other problems.
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