Pirated a game (No demo available) - now I'm feeling bad

If it sucks why would you buy it?

Don't feel bad. >2h is demo and it should be human right. If devs don't give a f*** , why should you?

Go watching some porn and forget about it. You're a human.

that's interesting
so you want to test it but the game didn't have a demo, and then you pirated it
now that you know the game is bad you want to buy it.....?

let's see....
if you bought it in the first place (without trying the pirated version), will you hate yourself (and regret to buy it and hope for a refund) because how horrible the game is ?
if yes, then you shouldn't buy it
if no, then just buy it i guess... even though that would be a waste of money...

or well, buy and then refund it or buy it later in a big discount (at that time you will forget about all of this though lol)

I say you should buy it, and ask for a refund. Problem solved.

even though the game is really, really terrible, I'm aware that there are still people behind it

And those people apparently did a terrible job ;)
I don't really understand you, I think you are making this uneccesarilly hard on yourself. You don't want to buy a "crappy shovelware" which is perfectly reasonable. Yet you do want to buy it because of some misguided sense of justice or fairness. Do you realize how utterly silly that sounds?

If you really can't live with trying it out for free, then unistall the pirated version, wait for a huge discount and buy the legal version. Or buy another game from the same developers, one that you'll enjoy ;)

To be honest, just forget it and don't torture yourself over it.

Stay calm and stay at home, OP. I've informed the authority. GSG 9 is on their way.

Anyway:

What would you guys do in my situation?

If it's a bad game / I don't enjoy it, I'd just uninstall the demo and remove the game from my wishlist.
If it's good, I'd just stop playing and bought it when it's on sale/bundle (didn't uninstall, though, no need to waste data by downloading twice)

what you downloaded was your demo. you tested it a little and didn't like it. delete it and move on.

Okay, this looks, to me, like a thread to excuse your pirating. Now, I could be wrong of course.

But, if it really isn't... Then I'd say... don't buy it. Or just buy it and refund it. Do what you would've done when you got the game. I doubt you would've kept it for the hell of it. You probably would've refunded it. And instead of refunding, just don't bother and don't buy it in the first place.

If you feel bad about the money you didn't spend, get those 40 bucks and buy some premium indie games out there you might like (or if you already have them, gift them to your friends). It's a better usage of the money, and evens out your act of piracy easily. You'd be helping the gaming industry much more, and making other people happy in the process.

The only way we have to stop having so many expensive bad games (and other shit as microtransaction everywhere) is by not buying them. Buying them, even if out of guilt, would only make things worse, as these large companies such as Square just look at its numbers every quarter.

You don't need to buy the game if you won't enjoy it at all. But next time, you can just buy a game from steam, play and see if its worth the money, keep. If not, just refund it before 14 days or 2 hours of gameplay, whichever comes first.

Move on and good luck.

Just follow your own moral code. If you don't feel like you've taken an unjust amount from Square-Enix and would rather not support the game, then don't. If you believe try-before-you-buy is a right of consumers then you've done nothing wrong in your own eyes and it was SE's fault for not having a demo.
This is a better scenario for everyone than you buying it and refunding it, where someone would have to handle the license removals or chargeback fees involved. The game also doesn't get a negative review in this case, so SE kinda benefits.

AFAIK, this World of Final Fantasy is not the typical RPG Final Fantasy You've played before (stalked a bit)
this game is the same type like Fire Emblem Heroes, Fate/Grand Order, Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax where most character from it's franchise collaborated by the publisher as fanservice to their fans but as new type of game
I'm not a fan fo Final Fantasy that much, but AFAIK Square Enix have tendency to milk their popular franchise. after I read the description, watch the trailer I already can decide "Not my type of game, not interested'. Not even need to watch any Let's play video on Youtube

Consider it a refund for a bad game OR wait for a sale and pay what you will feel comfortable to pay for your experience with the game, www.isthereanydeal.com is great for knowing when games get as low as you're willing to pay.

You could have used (abused, if you ask me) the refund system and you'd have created more trouble for all parties involved, because of the money moving back and forth. You almost have 4000 games on Steam. Don't feel guilty man!

Out of curiosity, how long did you play the game? I can kind of understand the "no demo, so I'll pirate it and buy if I like it" approach, but I think that if one plays it for a bunch of hours, gets through lots of the content etc., then says, "nah, crappy game; I won't buy"....I think that's shaky footing. A demo is usually, say, the first chapter, or time-limited (e.g., 2 hours, to use the Steam refund value). I feel that at that point, you should probably buy or uninstall. Or maybe push it a little longer if there's some key gameplay aspect you haven't unlocked yet but need to try out as part of a true game assessment. But anything beyond that is basically pirating the game. I'm not saying that pirating it at that point is good or bad, I'm just calling it what it is-- pirating the game instead of trying it out to see if you like it.

In your case, you said you, "played it for quite some time." and that it "turns out the game is horrible" and is "crappy shovelware." If it's that bad, why did you keep playing it, especially given that you've purchased every pirated "demo" before?

You're dumb.

You could always buy it and do a give away, then they'd get there money and you wouldn't have the game you don't like. And maybe someone else would enjoy it, I personally enjoyed the demo on PS4.

But I don't know what would make it feel better, I don't pirate many games, and even then, it's usually only old games.

If you are worried about this much why you create a thread? -.-

Everyone in this thread "Pirated" their Avatar and made a digital copy without the owners permission. Everyone pirates. Everyone. Only a few are delusional enough to stand up an a soap box while doing it.

Uninstall, delete, go about your day. The pirated copy did exactly as it should have: informed your decision in the same manner a demo would have. Maybe the reason why this game never got a demo has something to do with your conclusion, that it's not very good.

If it sucked that bad, it's not worth a purchase. Don't feel bad about it. Yes I think developers should be supported, and I hate piracy that's done out of greed, but... If a game is shit, the developers don't deserve money. Giving them money just entices them to make more shit.

if you feel that bad just buy a different game from them you feel does not suck,i try not to support games that suck(tho we all get duped from time to time) that way the company does there best to try not to make the same mistake on the next game they come up with.

I stopped reading when you said WoFF is a bad game.