The only two objectively justified reasons for pirating a game are:
1. It's either not available in your country* or it's no longer available at all (after the death of Bullfrog and before GOG, the only way to get hold of Dungeon Keeper was to steal it). If you ask most devs, they'd rather someone genuinely unable to buy their game stole it than didn't play it at all. They're in the business of fun, after all.
2. You already own a copy of the game in question, but you want to play without the restrictions of included DRM, such as always-online requirements. If you've paid for a game, you are entitled to play it, and poor service on the part of the publisher does not change that.
And moving onto more nebulous territory...
Personally, I think that video games are pretty much the only industry besides food where you're not allowed to try out something before purchasing it as an industry standard, and I do believe that it's a sensible decision to try something out via piracy before throwing money down. That said, I rarely spend more than £4 on a game nowadays, so it's been a long, long time since I've actually needed to exercise that belief. Just don't forget (or "forget") to buy a copy when you're satisfied, eh?
A lot of people think that if you lose the disc for one of your games, you're morally entitled to pirate a copy, since you've already paid for it. I'm kind of OK with that, though I'd rather people just looked after their stuff. I have used that logic in the past, though in both instances the game was no longer available anyway.** I'm a grown man now, and I like to imagine that I hold myself to a higher moral standard. What with the rise of digital distribution, though, it's pretty much a moot point.
The only other time I can remember pirating a PC game was Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, because that game was so notoriously broken that a) in the UK it'd probably be considered void under Sale of Goods and b) the torrent actually included all the required fan-patches. When the pirate versions of your game are more stable than the commercial version, you've pretty much failed as a developer. That said, I still had enough fun with it that I bought it on Steam.
Oh, wait a minute, I also pirated Baldur's Gate II, but solely for the game assets used in a mod for Baldur's Gate I, which I legally own. I commit crimes for the weirdest reasons.
I've got a few console ROMS, mainly for Nintendo handhelds, plus a couple for Gamecube. I don't think I'd be able to buy a Gamecube firsthand today, so that probably counts as "no longer available" - you can get them used, but none of the money is going to reach the people who made and distributed the console,*** so there's not much difference to them whether you pirate their games or not.
As for the handhelds, some would say that since I have no intention of owning a DS (or any handheld gaming thing), I never had the option to play these legally, and, with no ports or official emulator planned, was simply never part of the market for these games. I've never really liked that argument either, since I still technically could buy a DS and play them legally - the fact that my lifestyle choices mean I won't is neither here nor there. While I don't believe that the availability of illegal ROMS factors into my decision not to own a DS - I never bought one in all the years before it occurred to me to pirate the games - no-one can actually prove that, and an argument based solely on beliefs isn't a very good one.
Apart from that total of about 6, I don't own any pirated games. I do own a sizeable-but-not-massive amount of pirated music and software, but that's just because I'm an ignorant scumbag.
Oh, and if someone makes that stupid "piracy isn't stealing because it's digital" argument, I will do horrible, horrible things to the corpses of their family. You're recieving goods without paying your fee. You're stealing. It's not unforgivable, but it is a crime. Fucking deal with it.
*I read manga online occasionally, another form of IP theft, but this argument is so widespread outside of Japan that everyone kind of forgets it's illegal.
**DK and Age of Wonders - in fact, for Age of Wonders, it wasn't even negligence that cost me my copy, I'd just used the disc so much over the years that the hole in the middle had worn open; It stopped working when the disc wasn't stable enough to for the laser to read.
***Note "distributed". You might not like EA or Ubisoft, but without their distribution arms, you wouldn't be able to buy their games at all. They do their part, and deserve their cut. Not to mention the fact that they bankroll these games in the first place...
Last edited by MeechMunchie; 01-19-2014 at 03:29 PM..
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