What's your opinion about piracy?

Let's say I go to the electronics store and buy a washing machine. I bring it home, plug it in and realize it's not working. So what do I do? Return the product back to store and get a new one. I can't do that with digitally distributed video games, because if I buy a game that either runs poorly or doesn't run at all on my PC, I won't get a refund since it's only my fault for having a garbage PC.
So let's say I pirated Watch_Dogs. I run the game and realize it runs really poorly, so I just delete it off my HDD and never try it again - if I bought the game, I'd instantly lose 60€ for something I can't even use. In that case I think piracy is justified.
Now someone else with a way better computer downloads the same game, he realizes it runs well, plays it for a couple of minutes. So he decides to buy the game for retail price, or delete the game and wait for a sale. This is also pretty fine with me, since he tried out the product and paid for it right after
Now a third person pirates the game, plays it for a while, everything runs perfectly, so he plays for couple of hours, while he enjoys the game all the time. Then he either stops playing or actually finishes the game and never buys the product. That's the point where I feel like piracy is wrong. If you play and enjoy the game (thus you enjoy someone's work), you should pay for it.

Conclusion: I feel like it's fine as long as there's no demo of the game so you can't try it out / you're not sure if you can run it / the game is barely playable because of bugs/performance issues. But once you start enjoying the game, pay for it.
As I said in the beginning, you usually can't get a refund when a game runs poorly. If you buy a broken washing machine and never refund it, it's useless and doesn't serve its purpose. A game is meant to be played and if it can't be played, then it's useless and I'm not gonna pay for a product that is possibly broken/unstable and unusable.

Also I'm not even talking about those lame excuses e.g. "I'm a student and I don't have money for games". Games are not a necessity, you can live without them. If you want money, work. I'm a student as well, I make like $120~ (=two AAA titles) monthly just by working 3 hours once a week. And that's not even that good of a job. You have a working computer, so you obviously have some money, stop lying to yourself and others. Blame your laziness instead.

It's ok to pirate EA (they just ask for it) lol

I don't pirate PC games, maybe some emulators only, but when I don't own the consoles, but most of my friends pirate all PC games except some with multiplayer, they only buy console games, so they can spend 60-70€ in one game and not spend this money to buy lets say over 30-50 games for Steam, but since most of them don't play console a lot because they have a gaming PCs.....they end up playing free games, LoL, Hearthstone, etc Which is stupid from their part imo.

Everyone ends up pirating something, there aren't a lot of ppl who buy everything including TV series, movies, music, comics/manga, anime/cartoons, eBooks, audiobooks, android/iOS games, some programs/apps, etc, buying all it's impossible, you must be very rich to buy everything, but even if ppl become rich they remain their habits.

PIRACY IS OK, because
nowadays games are too expensive (+60€)
most games are cut, so you have to get the uncut version somewhere else (especially in Germany - thank you USK)
~you can download a game and see if it runs on your hardware and buy it later for Multiplayer, etc.

PIRACY IS NOT OK, because
~the develeopers need the money. That's why I oftentimes buy the game afterwards!

But in total, I would say Piracy is OK if you still buy games from time to time and support the gaming industry!

In these days you can´t get Demo version and if you are not stupid enough to buy something you did not test before you have to download it and try. Is it ok if you download game, test it and if you like it - buy it or if you dont like it - just stop play and uninstall. Wrong is if you finish pirated game (but who cares). Developers rely on that. That is why don´t waste time with demo versions. And amount of piraci kill the PC gaming. Many games is only for these stupid consoles just because console players are dumb enought to not be able to download it. :D

Well, If publishers can't adjust prices for countries with small income then it is they'r own fault that people are pirating I mean one has to be insane to spend about 1/5 of a minimal wage for a AAA game..

Piracy is bad.

Money milking publishers like EA won't get any money from me. Paying for the base and then extra 20$ for the DLC that's in the base game is stupid and retared. I'am better of pirating games like that. Also games in my country costs 4x times as much because of stupid currency we have here.

I find piracy acceptable when a publisher doesn't give a flying fuck about its costumers, i.e. enforces region locks for no real reason, preventing activating of any copy of the game (South Park: The Stick of Truth comes to mind. #FuckUbisoft).
It's also perfectly fine in countries where consoles and games are overpriced, be it due to greedy retailers or a decision from Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo or their local representatives - It's bad enough that a new console costs nearly twice here than the rest of the world, there's no way in hell that I'm paying 100$ for a new game.

On the other hand, there's no excuse for piracy of PC games when you can easily find them on sale even a few months from release.

tl;dr
Piracy is fine when the publisher doesn't gives a fuck about the costumer.

Piracy is totally fine, nowdays all kinds of sellers (Game Publisher, Movies and Music) has turned to stupid idiots who just want money for hype, the result of the actually product is awfull and shit. So download all illegal test it, enjoy it and pay them eventually after that. This is my opinion.

OK as long as you juat want to try out the game
It isn't available in your area
It was taken down everywhere, so there are no ways of purchasing it anymore
It's an old game

I use pirated games to check if they are any fun, if I like it I will buy it

Personal opinion. Does wanting to play in your native language justify pirating a game? Yes, because:1) NOT all games include 3+ languages. Some include just English. For example, Cossacks series HAS NO RUSSIAN, despite being made in Ukraine. Neither Steam, nor GOG version have any language other than english. Which is really upsetting, since I used to play first Cossacks back home and in Russian. Also STALKER, from same company DOES have Russian. Why doesnt Cossacks? Because apparently guys at GSC Game World havent thought there might be people who want to play this game in countries other than Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. (I can tell you that English voicing COMPLETELY BUTCHERED this awesome game. No unit responses, just cutscenes/objectives are voiced.) 2)Also, testing if your computer can handle a game can lead to piracy as well.

But Minecraft, I've never pirated a single game in my entire life. Now you might be wondering why only Minecraft, but it's because I don't play it so much, only when I have some time to waste. Even old games like TES: Morrowind and GTA: San Andreas, I bought them all, never pirated them just because they're 'old'.

Well, this is a complex problem and I will try to present my point of view not only as a user but as a software developer as well.

The problem should be analyzed considering 2 aspects:

1. Why do people pirate games (and not only).
2. What caused the situation above.

The first point is simple.
On one side of the barricade you have people that pirate games because:

a) They cannot afford them (they are way too expensive for that area's average income or the person doing this cannot afford the game - most likely because they are kinds/teenager that are still in school and don't work yet)
b) Games are hard to get (region locked stuff/political censorship etc.)
c) Those who pirate the game because they wan't to buy it but they want to try it first.
d) There are those who pirate the games not because they cannot afford them but because they consider the game is waay too expensive for what it offers (paying 60 dollars/euros on CoD when you're still on a dial up connection that doesn't allow you to play the MP for example) of because the game is full of bloatware DRM #$%# of any kind (always online/hardware ID activation/limited installations - yeah, it's you I'm talking about Ubisoft) and this is their way of fighting "the system".

On the other side, you'll find those that simply refuse to pay because (why the &(&( would I pay for a game) and those who consider that pirating games is OK because as long as it's not something physical, it's not stealing (not saying it is stealing, in a classic way but I chose to consider it stealing as long as you can afford them, as long as you don't have other important things that can prevent you from buying it or as long you are not part of those mentioned above).

The second point however is a little bit complicated to be analyzed here but if I were to simplify it as much as I could I would say that the main reason is corporate greed. This leads to overpriced games, poor content, low support quality, aggressive DRM that will ruin your gaming experience, lack of demo and fake & aggressive marketing campaign. The last 3 points are, from my point of view an attempt of deceiving customers into buying something that is completely different from what they will get (present them with a cool spectacular trailer and some well designed gameplay sequence, don't release a demo and prevent the user from trying the game before buying it).

So, from my point of view, as long as you are part of the first category (1 - a/b/c/d), it's OK.
I also believe that piracy is the last stronghold that stays between publishers and outrageously overpriced games.

I did pirated over 100 games, that was when i was younger (couldnt pay) and also there were nowhere to buy them, or too expensive. My Geographic position is quite for game pricing. You see, i live in a city bordering with the US, but i dont have a visa, so i cant/couldnt go to buy games. Games here cost the same as the US + importation + profit from the store, making a physical copy of the game around 20% more expensive than normal.

So it was pirate or dont play at all. I probably finished around 10 games at most probably in a 5 year period, just tested more or less. After steam appeared, i did got 2 games (borderlands and MW2), i learn with MW2 that i shouldnt pay 60 bucks for a game (and steam was so broken back then), or at least that franchise since i did payed same price for Starcraft 2.

Learned about all the specials/bundles, i can pay for that, why not?

I think the right terminology for "piracy" discussed here is Copyright infringement. And the most known motives are also posted here.
As for my opinion:
I see his debate about "piracy" kind of silly (not this thread, but generally :)). A so called "piracy" has been always among us and is here to stay - hopefully!
Don't get me wrong, i usually pay for my entertainment - (i go to cinema and concerts, buy games and books) but there's something about our human nature, that makes us copy and/or try the things that seem interesting. It's actually a basic instinct - as babies we start learning to talk, draw, write, dance, sing.... by copying! Well if you take this deeper its actually fuel for progress of our civilization :), copy + improve = progress! Right? Well that's unfortunately only philosophical and noncommercial view of it.

As for commercial view, it all started with printers and books (~300 years ago) ... you can read the history here. The creators must be paid for their work, or else they cant produce and create new things. But we all know that the copyright law has been abused (specially the length) and is outdated for the new digital world, in which "everything" (with 3D printing) is practically at the palm of our hands.

There are always gonna be extremists on either side, but most of us fall "somewhere in between" of these two views. I personally pay for what i like and enjoy and i copy(or borrow) the things i find interesting to interact with! And thanks to steam and gog i haven't pirated a game in years.
The copyright law be rewritten to be more adapt to digital age (the market for digital goods are not local stores anymore, but the whole world, which means more costumers and more "pirates" --- a more fair use model should be implemented).
The laws are not adapted for digital goods yet and the new conflict is already here - it'll be interesting to see how 3d printing is gonna change the game ... You wouldn't steal a car..., hell no, but i'm gonna print me one :D

I think that it is completely fine to pirate a game if the developer hasn't bothered to release any demo for the game. BUT that doesn't mean, I support piracy fully. I mean if there is no demo available, you pirate the game to have a feel for it, if you like it; you buy it.

very fucking necessary!

I find it funny how people who come here to leech are the ones justifying piracy on a site devoted and made to min' piracy stats. . . also in the era of bundled games and people still crying about their need to pirate.

I honestly can say that I do not pirate anything. Despite there being many temptations, thanks to Indie Bundles and deep Steam Sales I tend to always have something new to play.

Pirating music= ok for me, pirating movies= ok for me, pirating games= only, if you want to test if the game runs on your PC and buy it later :)

Let's put it this way. Say you are the game developer and you've put your time, effort and money into developing this game and would like a return on it. Say a few people buy it legally, but the rest are downloading a pirated copy. Since they are pirating the game, it cuts into your return/profits -- would you be happy with this?

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