Would you pirate if it was legal?

Piracy can't be legal because piracy, by definition, is a criminal act. The games would be considered freeware and could not be obtained illegally, hence not pirated.

I already pirate. And it's not even illegal where I live.

And yes, I would still pirate if games had no DRM. It's only one of the many causes for piracy, the main one being that there's no way to know if a game is worth paying for before playing it. Basically, the function of DRM is to prevent me from paying for something that otherwise deserves my money.

Long Live Piracy!!! It is our insurance against soulless publishers. Buy only those games which you like and deserved to be bought.

Easy : where I live, pirating isn't illegal. And I pirate. Thus, I would pirate. I'd still buy the games I like/donate to the devs/whatever though.

If it was legal it wasen't called piracy :i it would be called something different i guess

I use Linux, so I pirate a lot of games to see how well they run before buying them. If the game runs well, and I like it, I generally purchase it. If it was legal, I would continue to do the same.
I have ran into problems when I get too hasty and buy games without testing them. For example, I bought Fable 3 on Oct 9, 2011, for $20.37, and I have still not been able to play any of it. The Games for Windows Live DRM, like most DRM, just screws over the legit users.

I don't really understand the question.

If piracy was legal, you wouldn't call it piracy. You wouldn't have the same mentality towards it and wouldn't label it as something morally wrong, since it's legal.

Are you trying to divide by 0 here?

Maybe... maybe

It is already legal in Bulgaria so I pirate.

Pretty sure if piracy wasn't illegal, ship owners would hire private marines to protect their ships and cargo so piracy would still be dangerous. Can't say that it would make me rush out, take to the high seas and run up a Jolly Rodger. :-P

As to copyright violation I have downloaded games that were so old that the publishers no longer exist or don't care and even the authors don't know who owns the rights, so called abandonware, as far as I'm concerned that is ethically fine though technical illegal. I like to think I wouldn't download new games just because there was no DRM though.
As for the idea that if it was legal there would be no games being made well it would certainly have a massive impact and big developers would only make 'Freemium' F2p, pay to win games but there are some games that were made completely as freeware, like Battle for Wesnoth, or games like Dwarf Fortress, released for free, playable but unfinished and the dev lives of donations made by his players while he carries on working on the game.

No, I wouldn't.

A vote for me is a vote for weed, hookers, and piracy laws gone, don't believe the lies, Hillary always tries, never cries.

Hillary2016

O_O

Piracy's legal here. I'm from Argentina, games are really expensive, so yes, I'm a pirate. I have original games in Steam and in my PS3 and PS2, but I have to admit that I have a lot pirate games too.

I've just moved from England to Mexico. Turns out that console games are so much more expensive here than in england, but everyone pirates games and they can bet gotten from any street corner along with DVDs for £1.50/$2.25

I would. O wait, it's legal for me.

Nah. First because I think most games are well priced (and if not, I don't buy them and wait for a sale), 20 bucks for a video game seems to be a fair price. Second because I'm a Steamwhore and need to have everything in one place, easily installed/uninstalled.

On the other hand, I pirate music and movies. Why? Because they're both overpriced and I don't care about CDs or DVDs, I need a digital support that is not fucking iTunes. The only albums I buy are the ones the artists put themselves on their websites in DRMless MP3.

developing games is a business, which is not made properly. look at AAA games, they are expensive to develop, cause of time, and too much people involved in it. and still no garanties what game will got a success. So it takes another money and time for advertisement. So all of this elements are the price of the game, whats makes them too expensive to some kind of people or countries. Thats why pirates are doing their job. Pirates are problem to the developers, not for a players, cause THEY should make us WANT to buy a game. I cant really understand why i should pay for some AAA rubbish like Assasins Creed or Crysis, but it cant be free, cause this rubbish develope cost was high. If you buy a shoe, and it was broken after your first day, or even if you dissliked a color, there is a law, what u can retrive this shoe back. What is imppossible with games cause of License Agreement, and other ways. Its unfair.

"I know most of you dont pirate games"
LOL

Yes i would

Forget free, they'd have to pay me to play CoD.

To be honest, until September of this year I never paid for a single game on my life, I have a DVD case that I call the "Pirate Bag" which have 520 dual layer DVDs full of pirated games and software, but then I purchased Dark Souls in steam so I could play online in my PC then I never pirated a game ever again, except for Dishonored but didn't play it longer than two hours and I'm waiting for a price drop to get it.
And for your thread's question : Yes I would pirate games that are too expensive/hard to get and if I really like the game I would buy it.

Why not? I guess at that point it will just be freemium model for all the games.

No. The fact that it's illegal isn't the reason I don't pirate.

It's been a while since I have downright pirated a PC game. Every since I acquired a regular amount of monthly funds, I try at least to take advantage of a steam sale or a bundle to build my Steam library. As for console games, I normally get my games from new/used stores like GameStop, Amazon and Glyde.

Occasionally I think about trying out a game to see if it'll run on my mid-range laptop, but never follow through.

In short, I really don't care about piracy. I'm an moderator on several gaming live-streams and the only problem I have related to piracy is when people talk about it, which is a violation of TOS of the live-streaming site. Other than that, I let people do what they do.

If it was legal...I'll probably pirate once or twice...but developers need money regardless and I wouldn't just go ahead and play the game without either buying it or finding another way to contribute to them.

One thing I don't agree with is the fact that companies blame piracy for whatever low game sales they have. I just heard from an accurate source of mines that one head honcho company is planning on raising prices for games by $10. The price is what's wrong with game sales today. I don't feel the need to buy games as soon as they come out at $60, $50 bucks. It's just too difficult for me in my current financial situation. I hear this a lot: 'If you don't have the cash, then you don't need to play games.' It irks me to no END when people say that. Playing games have gotten me through some ROUGH (and I mean ROUGH) situations, and if it wasn't for said games, I probably wouldn't be here right now.

Basically, piracy and DRM are just an overrated subject these days....