When is piracy not wrong?

I do download series as they are usually to spread out to watch on the TV and often at bad hours for me. I also tend to download music as it is hard to get what i listen to otherwise.
But the only time i've downloaded games in the last 8 years or so was when i got mass effect 1-2 and found out the price for DLC's. Downloaded ME3 + all dlc's for the trilogy the same day.

Abandonware is kosher in my books.

As is any game where there is literally no legal means of purchase. If you cannot get it through any legal route then the publisher has no interest in selling to you and you're in the clear.

i pirated a lot ~ 15-20 years ago. i didnt have internet in my region and i wanted to look in some games before buying them so i asked friends to copy and crack it or i got a look at my friends while watching them playing at home. Today internet is everywhere, youtube boomed and if i needed a preview i just look into a video or read a written one in the web; helps decideing to buy it or not, but 20 years ago in my village it was very hard to get informations about games.

Support the software developers. If you like this game, BUY IT!

If you know what i mean.

I only believe it's okay if you're downloading a back-up copy of a game you've already purchased legally.

Piracy is ok when you (literally, not figuratively) have no legal access to games, such as in North Korea, Iran, Syria etc.
It used to be ok when games were not physically available in your country and you'd have to pay lots for importing them - but now with steam and other content distribution platforms I don't see it as a valid excuse.

In Poland, anti-piracy act was passed in 1994, but for years to follow it was still hard to get hold of many western games so we would still go and copy them from each other, but we would always buy Polish games, because they were in the stores, and pretty cheap, so there was no valid excuse to pirate them. In fact, pirating Polish games was frowned upon as discouraging game development and, well, stealing.

So for me the line is pretty solid and clear - if you can buy a game, there's no excuse to pirate it. And by "can" I don't mean afford, but be able to get it wherever you live. If you can't afford a game - well, tough luck, you can fight the urge to play, or give in and pirate it - but don't go looking for approval on the forums... Piracy is shameful and for a good reason.

I can see some leeway.
You aren't sure whether your setup can run a game, so you pirate it first, try out he first 30 minutes or so, and then decide whether the experience was smooth enough for a purchase. This still has flaws though....

Well, I'm a game collector, what can I say...

I rather spend money on games than pirate those, same with music etc., but as a German I often run into issues with censorship or games not being available. So far I could always bypass this issue by using VPNs, but I'd totally understand if people would pirate games in that case. And to be specific, the censorship usually means that games are limited to German audio only, which makes it hard for people that live in Germany but can't speak German.

And I'd say piracy is a legit option for things that you can't buy anywhere anymore, like really rare albums from decades ago. In that case there's no one making money with the product and therefore I'm not really stealing anyone's profit. I see it that way: I want to enjoy the music of the artist, and if this is really the only way, would the artist really be mad at me, just because I want to listen to their music?

But as I'm taking a look at my steam wishlist I realize that not every game (or dev) there deserves my money

but I still wanna play them.

Yeah, that's not how it works.
you don't go to a restaurant, eat and then say "So... I was hungry, the food was okayish, but nothing special, so I won't pay, see ya"

when there aren't specific and clear laws about it, making up a strong and dissuasive deterrent

I do play some cracked games if i were interested in buying them and to try them out before paying the overpriced game sometimes if i do like the game i just buy it if i don't just simply uninstall.

"that not every game (or dev) there deserves my money, but I still wanna play them. " - What's worse than a company/developer that doesn't deserve money is an entitled prick that doesn't deserve the product but accesses it anyway. You are not entitled. You don't have a right to anything you didn't pay for. No one cares about whether or not you feel inclined to be a thief, a "demo thief", or any other type of excuse you use to try to moralize your thievery. You know you're scum and you should feel bad about it, not look for equally scummy people to make you justify your behavior.

i would download an infringed copy if i bought a game and it included some sort of drm that prevents it from running. ideally in that case i'd just not buy the game in the first place, but you don't always know.

if you think the dev / publisher doesn't deserve your money then i'd say don't play the game, or don't play it until it's discounted enough that you feel it is worth your money. there are tons of great games out there and i don't feel like i'm missing out by avoiding everything from ubisoft and ea or with drm that's too inconvenient for me.

Piracy is never wrong. The optimal choice in acquiring a game is to get it for free. The companies who make games already generate enough profit that they can support just one more person illegally downloading a game.

Piracy is not right, i am a music producer and know how it feels when some people steal your work.

I know it's probably wrong but I think that piracy is just a personal thing, if you don't want/can't pay for the games you play that's fine, if you do pay that's good but it's up to you. I used to be a full time pirate but now I pay for ~99% of the games I play (I still consider it ok to pay for the PC version of a game and then pirate the android version).

If a game is 15+ years old, or Dead/abandoned.

Well when i was younger i pirated 100% of the stuff i ever played ... nowadays i just buy what im interested in tho.

Then again if there is no way to get a game any other way ... its okay to go get a Rom or something .

Ofc you cant really expect people to be spending 60Euros on a game , when their monthly income is bout 250 ...but hey thats how Volvo prices some stuff ...

the piracy your describe is not wrong. that it's morally bad to download virtual games that way is a concept spread by the market to make you feel ashamed and to push you into spending money. that is bad

When The Game Is No longer supported and Cannot be found legally for Sale anywhere.

Piracy is wrong if you are piracing GOG games. They deserve all the money and praise that can get.

When it comes to EA/Origin thou...

I think that piracy is ok when you are bankrupt, and will never have money to pay that bank.

But to be real I don't think it is ok. I just download pirate movies, because I have literally no other way to watch them.
And as soon as I put my life in the line again, I want to start buying music to support the artists I love.
And I don't download pirate games, because I love indie games that are mostly cheap.

Being a Brazillian I can understand your pain, i will not be a hypocrite; i pirated a lot of games when i was young; but it was before a lot of changes; steam as an example; before it you only had access to pirated games here in Brazil (or an overly priced imported game); but now you just need to have an internet connection. I personally don't like to not have a physical copy of my games, but well, nothing in this world is perfect.
I think that now the only reasonable motive to piracy is like -fanbaseswhyugottasuc- above said; "When The Game Is No longer supported and Cannot be found legally for Sale anywhere."

clicky
it's wrong
but
it's not

When the game is not on sale, when the only alternative is buying used. When you use it as a demo. When you play the whole game and you know you'll eventually own it but you know you wouldn't have bought it any sooner anyway (Firewatch, I am looking at you).