My impression was that most people kind of "grow out" of pirating all their software and games after they're done with school. Once people have an income, they'd start buying their software just because it's too annoying to locate and maintain unlicensed stuff anymore. It's kind of time value vs money problem, solved largely by economics rather than morals. If there's any truth to this, then I expect GWJ is probably full of people who rarely (if ever) pirate games.

The downside of buying all your games outright, is when you get screwed. I've bought my share of PC titles that cannot be returned, and felt downright burned afterward. Demos be damned, I never get a good feel for a game from those overblown advertisements. Consoles definitely have an advantage due to game-rental services. I feel like I get a great gaming value on my 360, but I wish I hadn't purchased about half of the PC games I have.

One of my friends installed a bootleg copy of the original Quake on my computer way back in the day. Thing is, I had problems with it crashing and such. I finally went out and bought the game and it worked perfectly. My friend could not understand why I would pay for a game I had for free. I just wanted it to work right, and it felt better not having stolen code on my computer.

I have not pirated a single game since then. If I find some reason that I don't feel comfortable spending my money on something, then I do without. It always bothers me when I hear people rationalize their theft by claiming that there wasn't a demo, games are too short, and a host of other reasons. There are valid reasons not to buy the games, but they don't give you a right to steal them.

This is one of the reasons why I haven't purchased any PC games in a while.

I spend about half my time on Linux, but on the XP side, I really don't want to spend $50+ for a game that I am not sure will be any good to begin with, nor will even run on my PC.

Which is why the 360 and Gamefly=total win. Between demos, and rentals, I have found some things I didn't know I would even want (Ace Combat 6, Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4), and avoided some costly mistakes (Assassin's Creed, The Darkness, etc.).

I'm okay with purchases at the $60 level if I am going to actually play the thing, not if it gets put on the shelf, or exchanged for credit somewhere.

I'm not pirating anything, let's make that clear. I'm just voting with my feet.

When I had no money to buy anything I would pirate often.

When I was on a work term and could afford games I would buy them. I have even retroactively bought games I don't play anymore because I played them and enjoyed them pirated.

I think a lot of copy protection harms more legitimate users then it does pirates but I understand the reasons for it. I am a computer Engineer who is about to graduate and is seriously considering getting a job in the games industry, I would be stealing from my own plate in a sense if I supported such behavior.

Ever since I started making my own money the allure of piracy has just fallen away for me. I love getting a physical copy (more the box than the disc to be honest, easier to put on a shelf and look at nerdfully) and the convenience that legitimate purchasing brings. I'm by no stretch of the imagination rich, but since games are an important hobby to me I can usually scrape up the $60 to buy one game a month. It helps me to appreciate them more as well. In general I never played many of the games I'd pirate, it was more something I'd download because I could, then installed it and played for an hour or so before moving onto something more shiny. Kind of an accumulation. Now a game is an investment and though most games are just a torrent click away (you yungins have it easy with bittorrent, us old timers needed ftp sites and actual personal connections!). I just don't seem to enjoy piracy anymore. In fact, other than the feeling of being master of teh intarwebs, maybe I never really did.

Funny, Starcraft was one of the few games I pirated. Probably the last one I ever pirated too.

That is, unless you count abandonware.

I've found myself pirating a lot less now that digital distribution is taking off on the PC. My biggest reason for pirating was either the game wasn't economical to try out (Sims 2 after the bajillion expansions for example; I put it down after about a week) or because I owned a legitimate copy but circumstances made pirating easier. This might be I lost the discs, the disc I did have was unusable, or even I just couldn't be arsed to go find the bloody discs in my massive CD spool. These days I don't just have a good paying job but Steam and other download services make disc issues a thing of the past.

Granted I can't loan the game to friends as easily as I can with discs but, frankly, most friends I'd loan games to play consoles anyway so no loss there.

For me it's either games I can't find anywhere, like SNES games, and a select few PSX games, or replacements of a CD that got damaged.

Though, recently I've been using them as demos, because it's a fair better judge of playability on my old system. Like I torrented a copy of Fable, and when I saw that it ran, I went out a bought it, and deleted the pirated copy. Same thing with Fate (20$ for a good dungeon crawler? SOLD!)

Though, what's happned with all of the Geneforge series, is I play the demo, confirm I still love the franchise, order it (At which point it's like, 9pm), decide I don't want to wait to see what's past that next screen, find a serial number, plug it in, and I'm still playing when my actual registration number comes in. (At around 9am the next day, usually.) I've done that with a fair chunk of Popcap and Reflexive Arcade games as well. (Read, Crimsonland, Jets 'n Guns, and Ricochet).

I'm not entirely sure if that even counts as piracy. I think I've gotten one thing off of the pirate bay, and that was Planescape: Torment.

Then, there's the other side-issue of multiple copies of one game. I.e, running off another CD of Diablo 2, or UT:GOTY. That I have done a fair few of.

I tend to stray this area from time to time. I've never owned a system that could even be considered good enough for a mid-grade system compared to whatever was on the market, so buying new PC games without first seeing if they could be run has caused some issues in the past.

For the most part though, I'll just subscribe to an MMO (WoW) and keep myself busy that way. I find the $15/mo is cheaper than buying the amount of new games needed to keep me just as occupied and entertained.

Well I have pirated a LOT of games in the past, especially during kid/college era and still do now. Mainly PSP games since they really need to sell them ALL downloadable to memory stick and not make pirates out of consumers who just want convenience IMO Both Nintendo and Sony are stealing money from the developers this way more than pirates are since they know that whenever they play the "pirate card" i.e. ease up or even underhandedly promote how easily their systems can be cracked or homebrewed, they move units at the expense of their 3rd parties.

Being Asian it's pretty much in my blood to pirate games and Ive been made fun of in the past for being "white" when I bought games lol. However I have also bought a LOT of games, most at a discount but a substantial few at day 1 prices especially when I felt like supporting the developers. I've noticed that I own a lot more legit games than people who don't pirate or pirate sporadically and this correlates with similarly passionate gamers from this forum and others like CAG. The passion correlation is really important and if it ever becomes a case of DRM or creating passionate fans from them stealing from you, passion wins. I noticed even long before this generation of consoles got big that PC gaming was dropping off/dying and I noticed that many of my friends didn't even care enough to download games anymore. THAT's when I knew there was a problem. When you can get something for free and you don't even bother? it's far better to have a case where people remain passionate and you always have a chance at getting them as a future customer i.e. Sam and Max, Blizzard games that everyone pirated etc than not having them at all and actually have them grow up or move on to other hobbies. Nowadays I will easily buy the console version over torrenting any warezed PC version. Why? PC gaming is garbage and console ports now. DRM, compatibility issues and PC games being geared more towards people who want engines to benchmark their video cards than people who might actually play the game.

And Steam can go to hell. I don't play CS and I don't want their sh*t always loaded and hogging up my system tray kk thx

Back in my college days I would pirate anything. Then again, there were no game shops in my country to speak of, so piracy was the only way to get games. Actually I found out that the games are actually sold officially only when I was thirteen (i.e. after 7 years of gaming on various platforms). Until then, I considered the piracy thing normal.
Of course, ever since then I longed for original games - boxes, original discs, manuals, you name it. The very first one I bought was Syndicate, I picked it up during my stay in Great Britain in 1994 when I was sixteen. Ever since then I'm making an effort to get every game I liked (or wanted to play but was never able to get) legally. They are for peanuts currently on eBay and make great collector's items.
I also have a great stack of DS, GBA, PS1 and PS2 games. The only thing I really pirate are SNES games (and American PS1 games), because I never had a SNES. Still, I at least buy the GBA and PS1 remakes of the games I like whenever possible.

Also, if you don't like buying new PC games for high prices, just wait a bit and pick them up later, their prices drop very fast. Some games you're not willing to spend 50 dollars, but for 10 bucks they are worth a try.

By the way, buying second hand or used later still doesnt help the developers, even if it does appease your guilt or make it "official" for you many years later. In reality, even buying at a discount price really doesn't help the developers that much i.e. greatest hits price due to a messed up economics/broken business model. If you really want to support developers, buy at a Day 1 or at full price.

It is for this reason that I really think games need to come down to $20-30 because thats when a lot of us take the plunge especially since we know it happens quickly. Since we are gamers with jobs, we really win as by the time we have the time to play anything anyway its already discounted but again it doesnt really help developers. For me its the time when it is $20-30 when all sins are forgiven and just about anything can be made to look attractive to me lol. Does that include women? weeeeeeeellllll... ROFL

If you have a valid license for the game, then you're not pirating it.

When pirating is easier than buying games, I pirate. Dreamcast for example where no tools were needed other than a CD burner to produce a working copy of a game to play and more recently with PSP. Even when pirating I will still buy a copy of the games I have fun with. I specifically remember playing all the way through a pirated copy of MGS3 and then buying a copy the next day because I loved it so much (and then re-buying it again when Subsistence came out.) Amazing games really do deserve what little money they cost and I am glad to pony up for them. I don't however bat an eyelash when choosing not to buy games when I don't feel like they actually deserve it. It does come to the point when pirating is so easy that I may have 50+ games and only own a tenth of those.

We've all read the CoC Certis.