I agree to what MM said earlier... But obviously it's a bad thing if you pirate a readily available game and enjoy it with the intention of not supporting the devs. Also agreed with OANST on that.
Still, I don't have a reason to do it, 'cause I'd rather support the devs, even if it's crappy EA or another big company. Digital distribution sales make gaming an affordable luxury for Mr. Part-time-job over here (but not that piracy would be justified if it weren't an affordable hobby), and I'd be disappointed if Valve ever decide to stop the Steam sales in future for whatever reason.
But yeah, I pirated a couple of obscure DOS classics in the days before commercial digital distribution was a thing and I couldn't find what I wanted through Play.com or high street chains (Back in mah day, we had no Steam sales! We had to get our discounts from "budget range" re-releases of older games! I found AE that way). Lack of availability and all that.
Demos are good for legitimately trying a game though, even if some don't show enough of a game to see what it's really like (such as the Brutal Legend demo during its PS3 release), but I wish more games would have them... There have been a few games I've bought in the past which had no demos that I didn't enjoy. But I suppose there's YouTube and Let's Plays for that.
Anyone remember those PS1 demo disks which came with magazines?
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