What do you think about piracy ?

Piracy is good for the economy.

I think it's fine if you weren't going to buy the game anyway. For example, say you wanted to try a notoriously horrible game like Revelations 2012 just for the lulz. There's no way you would have ever actually paid money for it, so it's not like there was a sale lost. It's also fine if there isn't a demo available for the game you're interested in, and if you're able to limit the amount of playtime on it before you decide if you'd be willing to purchase the game.

Op knows whats up.

"I'm not saying that piracy is cool, but something useful to not being f*cked by some games."
Quoted for the Motherflippin' Truth

Piracy is really cool.

P.S.: Piracy is really cool.
P.P.S.: pls no ban imma fool

As I know people who depend on royalties and such to survive. Pirates can go jump into a vat of acid as far as I'm concerned

Those who try to 'justify' their piracy can be drawn and quartered, then thrown in a vat of acid. Nonsense like 'bad games' 'its not a lost sale' 'i cant afford it' etc are just bullshit you make up to make you feel better about stealing.

Piracy is bad. Just admit you're stealing.

I have no qualms with it since I do it too, but I do feel that if it's a product that you enjoy, or if it's something simple or new, you should support it, even if you've already played through it.

I try that sometimes, but since I really wanna know how it runs over the gameplay, I pirate

if the developer is too lazy to release a demo then ill "try before i buy" plain and simple. too many worthless console ports these days and games are over priced

There's a big problem in the gaming industry, and it's closely linked to the "15 dollars DLC every 2 weeks". Publishers are just wayyy too greedy. It's not just about the players, it's also about the publishers. It's not normal that some games like Arma are 20$, and CoD ones are 60$. Where is the difference that is worth a whole 40$? So somewhere, there's a big greedy problem, and I totally understand those who would want to pirate the 60$ games. Even more as they are super mainstream, not justifying their price tag at all in comparison to less known publishers. It's like a reverse market law...

Plus, as a minor point, the videogame's world is a little weird: there is little concurrence (might not be the good word... you know, when 2 shops offer the same product they kinda fight... that's what I mean). Well, there is some fighting in the videogame world, luckily, but it's not always so. A monopoly over a product makes it difficult to buy an alternate product. There are shops like greenmangaming that offer them at lower prices than usual, but those are rare. And I wouldn't be surprised to see it change much like the boardgame industry and the comic book industry: people will be forced to sell at a specific price otherwise they won't get the product distributed to them at all.

I think piracy thus has it's use. I know it's theft, but since you don't have access to other products, and that indie developers proved that games can be sold at much lower prices, I don't think it's as evil as it is meant. It is some kind of justice from the consumers to the publishers.

I've bought plenty of console games in my youth. Full price. One too many time I've found out that the games were craps, so I began pirating. Then I discovered Steam, and I'm throwing so much money at them that I don't understand why "mainstream" publishers don't just lower their prices. With the right prices, they can sell tons of games too and they won't have to whine so much about piracy as they do now. There will always be a core of pirates, but I seriously think that the majority of gamers are attracted by low prices. And that's exactly what made Steam so much successful over the last couple of years.

I pirate some games and if i like them, i buy them afterwards.

What if I told you piracy doesn't really affect total sales?

Pirasy is not legil

I'm completely against pirating games. Sure, you want to try the game out and see what it's like. But I'm willing to bet 90% of people who pirate, try it and complete it without even spending a penny on the game.

If people put their hard work and time into creating a decent game, you should pay for it. Regardless of your situation, there are no excuses.

I think piracy exist because game developers make us games TOO EXPENSIVE, if games were 10€/$, i'm sure that piracy will decrease a lot...

It's all around a negative, but the losses attributed to piracy are vastly overstated.

most of the times, i try before i buy, because :

1. my pc is old, i wanna make sure that my pc can handle the game.

2. i can't afford full priced games.

3. i wanted to make sure that the i really like the game

4. almost all of the game demos are not good enough to represent the games.

5. i don't want to buy half baked games (games that have potential to be good, but the dev or publisher didn't bother to fix
   the bugs, especially game breaking bugs)

6. i hate DRM, especially always on DRM or limited activations DRM, especially the ones that didn't give back or regenerate
   the activations limits, and most of the time, they hide the fact that their games uses this kinds of DRM.

7. i always buy games that i liked, either directly or waiting for it to be on sale (if the price is out of my range).

8. i'm an SP player, and not an MP Player, so i need to make sure that the games are not focusing all of it on the MP part.

but indie bundles makes me sometimes to buy it before i even try it, because my connection are slow, i can't try it before i buy it, and i did regret some of the bundles that i buy.

and not all indie games are good, some are just taking advantage of the rise of indies, and makes shitty games.

if the game is single player and i don't UBER WANT IT SO BAD and its over 10$, piracy is good

So you played many pirated games and bought only Terraria? That's funny to hear, cuz Terraria is pretty cheap and I bet you bought it on -75% sale anyway.

For those who think that games are not expensive, have you ever thought about the fact that in some countries the minimum wage is <200euro/month, but the game prices are the same worldwide? Well, there is where people use pirated software the most.

Does it count if we steal EA's free games, its not really piracy, just their screw up

Well, if you pirate my work, i'm pretty much having to skip a meal...

How does it feel?

I will admit I have Pirated same games, and still do from time to time, However I usually do 1 of 2 things in the end, Buy it, or Hate it and get rid of it.

For example, Back before I even knew about steam, I Pirated Half Life 2, Beat it, and loved it. However, there were some glitches I didn't like, and looked into the game a bit more, and came across steam (During the time you could get Portal for Free). I ended up buying the whole Valve Complete Pack in a sale that Christmas. Since then, I bought many more (Just check my profile).

The same for Minecraft and Terraria (Well, Actually I ended up winning Terraria from CAG).

Mainly I pirate for 1 of 2 reasons, to try it out first to see if I liked it, or until I have the money to buy it. Even if I end up beating it before then, I still buy it. I personally love the Updates not being a pain, plus I love replaying them later.

In my case, the only thing Piracy has hurt was our wallet in the end. :p

Pirating a game isn't justified by anything. With promos like nowadays where you can grab games for <5€ it's not even worth the time to search for a pirated game version. As for trying - the demos are for this, if the dev doesn't give a demo, then he clearly doesn't care, and so should you - do not buy his game and move on to something different.

"Piracy" is a misnomer used by thieves who want to maintain a monopoly. Copyright is little more than thinly veiled theft, and the sooner people are educated about this fact, the sooner we can do away with it and stop holding back the advancement of various forms of media. Then when people try to break these communistic monopolies, the thieves cry "piracy" and try to fine and imprison people for doing humanity a favor.

EDIT: Wow... Reading through the comments, I can't believe the sheer number of people here that are actually ignorant enough to support theft and condemn those that try to do something about it... For those who wish to educate themselves, read through some of the articles on this site: http://questioncopyright.org/

I don't think piracy is right unless it's for an older game. Almost all Steam games have huge sales, so what's problem waiting a little longer? I do agree demos should be available for all games though.