When is piracy not wrong?

The answer is implied within the term “piracy” itself.

The whole goal of a pirate on the seas was to steal from anyone and everyone they could steal from... plunder, savage, rape, kill etc... was there ever any allowable excuse for what a pirate did? No... the whole idea of pirate which is defined by his wrong actions is inexcusable.

I do have a couple of problems with the semi-common "the company is no longer selling it, so it's okay to pirate" argument.

First, they could decide to sell it again in the future, and you're hurting the value of their held IP at that point. You might have bought their remake next year instead. This actually happens - Night Trap recently got a rerelease after being off the market since the 90s.

Second, when some people buy physical games (and I am NOT saying all people here), part of the value in that game is the ability to resell it later. When you pirate, you cut the demand for that game, and therefore reduce the value of that game. If a company's games consistently have a weak secondary market, the company's future games will be worth less as well, because everyone has seen that they don't hold their value.

Although not the exact same case, we've all seen the loss of future value happen. I'm sure you've heard that it's not worth buying brand new games from certain developers because they'll be 75% off in six months, or bundled by the end of the year. Their new games are worth less to us because their previous ones have been heavily devalued.

Pretty much always.

......

Haven't we been through this already? Like, a few weeks ago at most.

I feel ya, I was growing up dirt poor but love playing video games. Those pirated games keep me and my brother stay at home. If not because of that we might be out there on the street and who knows what could have happened to us. Just remember, you might think you have a justified reason to do it but that doesn't mean you are in the right to do so. In the court of law, no one gives a shit if you don't have the money to buy a game, pirating is against the law period. So, when I have spare money, I likes to buy bundle games and give them away :)

If you really wanna buy a game first there is so many websites that the price is cheaper for example g2a. I bought 10+ games from there for like -70 -80%.I got borderlands 2 for 5 dollars (which in steam is 20 dollars if i'm not lying) Saints Row IV for 4 dollars (in steam is 16 dollars).

1) When you can't play really old games from old platforms like SNES or something like this. Ex.: I played Pokemon Red Fire last year because I won't buy the console just for that.
2) When a game doesn't have a demo. You can pirate a game to play 30min~1h to see if you like it or not.
3) If you're you're going to buy it if you like it. Some people play the same game over and over, so it's fair they buy the game to support devs.

Morals are subjective so pirate if you want to and don't pirate if you don't want to. Piracy is a pain in the ass now anyway compared to how it once was.

Never. The only justifiable excuse is when you torrent/pirate to test the game on your system THEN delete it afterwards. Example: If there's no refund on Steam, that'd be fair. Then again, it works only for digital stores that offer refunds.

I used to pirate games but now no more*. Hell, I have 3k+ games on Steam already.

*unless I missed something /s

when you live out at sea and call yourself a pirate and respond to people with ARRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Piracy isn't wrong when you legally bought a copy and keep it wrapped in plastic. Either for collection value like DVD/BD or because DRM makes the game unplayable for paying customers. Or service you bought it from went down.

When I do it it's okay, obvs

I think that piracy is not a good thing, but is not that terrible either. I don't like it when I see people with enough money pirating stuff they could buy, and I don't like it when people think they deserve to have something or claim that someone doesn't deserve money for producing something, even though that product is good enough for the person pirating it to want. On the other hand, 'piracy as demo' can be okay (if play time is strictly limited) and pirating stuff you can't get otherwise is also borderline okay, although it's possible to get most things with a bit of work, and you should pay for it when it becomes available.

I realize that not every game (or dev) there deserves my money, but I still wanna play them.

That's not something I'd consider a good enough reason. Wanting something is never an excuse for taking it. And if you want to play the game, then the devs deserve your money. Wait for a deep discount if you want, but don't get a pirated copy just because you want to.

It has been awhile since I pirated a game, but I remember in the past when I did so. I mainly did it to test a game that I wasn't sure on if I would like it or if it was worth buying.

Now a days if I would pirate something, I would normally do so to see how the game runs on my rig... since I noticed now most games no longer have demos anymore... so in order to test the game you have to A: Buy it, or B: Pirate it.

when it is abandonware and there is no other way to get it..

I tend to say that, if you don't have the money, you can try the game...
You can pirate the game just to try it on your system before purchasing it.
But you NEVER EVER SHOULD download a pirated game you want, have the money to buy and YOU KNOW it runs on your PC.

When it is butt piracy of course. It's not wrong to be a butt pirate and involve yourself in butt piracy as it isn't something they can help. It's just the way they...arrrrrrr

Piracy is one of the most important things that will preserve knowledge and digital goods for future generations.

Trust me, I know what I'm saying, there's already a TON of stuff that's gone forever.

When your country just ended net neutrality and your ISP is monitoring your connection so they can bill you extra for anything remotely fun....it's okay to go to another country and pirate stuff for the entire year...? :P

I think its really only okay if there is literally no legal way to obtain the game in your country. Which happens occasionally.

I was playing pirated games till last year because i didn't have the money to buy them. Now I bought the games that I liked very much and played it again. I think it's okay if you don't have the money but if you just wanna try it you could just buy a cd and then sell it again.