What is your stance on piracy?

There are too many fully free games these days to ever justify pirating something really.

1.I would say I accept piracy IF you can't really pay for it. If you can buy it but instead buy a nike shoes or something instead(unnecessary things basically) you wouldn't get my respect.
2.Yes
3.Last spring, I think.
4.Assassin's Creed 1

5. I wasn't sure if it could run in potato, and it couldn't.

What is your stance on pirating video games, or anything for that matter?

• Can't decide, I don't really support it, but i'm not that much against it, there are lots of bugged games and stuff that shouldn't have it's price.
  Have you ever pirated a game?
• Yes.
  When was the last time you pirated a game?
• 2-3 years ago.
  What game was it?
• Lots of games.
  Why did you do it?
• I didn't know about the prices of original games, I didn't know about Steam, I expected every original game to be around 100€ xD

I've bought almost every game I've ever pirated.

Hard working people who do what they must to survive in cruel capitalist world.

I used to pirate games, but then I took Steam in the knee.

Also I still pirating all the software that I use, I only spend money on games and hardware.

You would think that people would pirate to get games for free, but suprisingly enough thats largely never the case. Even personally I used to believe I pirated to get free games and stuff without having to pay, but after finding steam I've basically never pirated a game. A lot of it I reckon comes down to how easy it is and proper compared to the difficulty it is just getting a legal version. I also honestly believe that Steam or Valve has done more to reduce piracy then any other company without even knowing it. Multimedia is changing and its quickly becoming a service instead of a product. Until large corporations figure this out and start allowing for good alternatives such as better prices for netflix, steam and music streaming services. The faster a lot of people will start paying for multimedia content as opposed to pirating it.

To answer your questions:

1) Difficult matter, if you pirate so that you can make money or sell other peoples multimedia at a profit I hate you. If you pirate for personal reasons then I'm happier with it.

2) Yes

3) Last week

4) Saints Row IV

5) I actually own the game, but my countries rating system is run by 90 year old highly religious dumbasses who think that if we see someone with an anal probe we might start doing it. This means that I can only get a scummy version of the game so I downloaded the full version online.

I used to pirate everything but I don't do it anymore. I think I stopped somewhere around 2009. Steam helped with that.
Piracy will always be there, content makers, publishers and distributors just need to offer a better service. DRM is such a good example for this; pirates get no DRM and people who pay and support the company get sliced by installation limits and online activations. Its like the publishers are playing a cruel joke on us.
I will pirate games that have cruel DRM policies - I'm ok with steam/uplay/origin since they are account based systems but just try and sell me a tages or securom protected game. I'll pirate the shit out of it if I really want to play it.

1. Don't understand it, everything is so cheap right now (unless one wants only the highly advertised high budged mainstream games/stuff) that I have backlogs on everything counting into hundreds. Where do these ppl get the time to play/watch/listen/read so much of everything? :-P
2. Yeah, I used to pirate a lot 20 years ago when the availability of anything in my country was near to none. Nowadays (since at least 5 years ago) I nearly don't pirate at all, it takes too much time and effort, not worth the 2-5€ that a game costs me to buy. Note: I'm an old geezer by gamer standards (30yrs old) and I'm not interested in mainstream anything, I love old & indie games, they are like the ones that I played when I was younger. They don't make mainstream games like the ones in my day any more, now get off my lawn! ;-D
3. A couple of years ago I pirated - 4. Terraria (around ver 0.8) - 5. cause it looked really fun and there was no demo, but I wanted to know if I like it before I would pay 10€ which I regard as a high cost for a game. (I did like it and bought a 4pack for the full price 2 days later.)

Touchy subject. Piracy can be great in a lot of ways, lots of downsides too, no denying that. Still, it is not a matter of acceptance or "hey what you think about it", as it is not a passing matter or something that people are going to just change from one day to the next. It's a process. Some companies handle it better (valve), some worse (mpaa).

Personally I could brag that my pirating days are over as steam is glorious blablabla. But still, that is just a portion. I pirate movies and tv shows regularry (yeah downloading tv shows is piracy too) and would do the same with music if spotify wouldn't have started up in my country recently (based on my personal experience the change could come on the subject of movies 'n shows too once netflix happens here, but honestly no idea). There is no real ideology behind it, I don't pirate tv shows because I have something against the show producers or studios as well as I didn't stop pirating games because I started to love game companies. It's all just a matter of convinience. Somethingsomething about price/quality and accessibility of content for different parts of the world.

The last game I pirated was Theme Hospital (downloaded it about a year ago), no regrets.

What is your stance on pirating video games, or anything for that matter?
I'm completely against it.

Have you ever pirated a game? Once.

When was the last time you pirated a game? Over 3 years ago.

What game was it? Minecraft.

Why did you do it? I had no income and was too lazy to figure out how to buy it.

1. I completely approve of "piracy" when used as a way to try a game, and deciding whether it's worth the money or not. Great way to weed out franchise BS and sub-par hyped games in general. Reviews and LPs can also help, but nothing beats actually sitting down and playing the thing. I feel it would also discourage the "get it out MOAR FASTER NAW so we get teh money, patch later if we feel like it" if it's done as a rule. Old good "Patch it while in beta, make sure it's in an at least playable state before we release" should return.

2. Yes, multiple times.

3. Whenever it was that X:Rebirth came out. Two or three months ago, I think?

4. X:Rebirth

5. To try it, of course. Was...disappointing. Decided to wait a while to see how it progresses. Will try again later.

Space pirates are okay

ninjas are way better

modern pirates are scary

old pirates are smelly

digital pirates are everyone

I could be serious but I don't think this is the best place for this discussion!

HOME COOKING IS KILLING THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY WARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Anyone remember when Ubisoft support sent people a scene cracked exe to fix their DRM issues?

I started playing pirated stuff on the C64 and PC 286 in the early 90s.

1. I don't like it!

2. Yes

3. 2011 February

4. Counter-Strike

5. Wanted to play it. :/

1. It's wrong but I pirate anyways
2. Yes
3. 1/28/2014
4. Broken Age
5. I wanted to play it

The moment you realize that you might actually want to create and sell something someday, is hopefully the moment the irony sets in.

The moment you attain an actual income, piracy isn't worth the time or effort.

Depends on the reasons why. I've seen instances of people pirating educational books because they wanted to learn about certain important topics, but either couldn't afford them or had to worry about an abusive spouse or family member finding a physical copy of the book/s in question. Sometimes both.
And there are plenty of other legit reasons for piracy. Unlike the nonsense that some corporations spout, it isn't all penny-pinching jackasses.

Yes, I have. It was a few years ago, and it was the Sega CD version of Snatcher. I did it because I was really goddamn nostalgic, and couldn't find it anywhere besides eBay. And the prices for a copy are fucking absurd. If Konami would just re-release it, I'd buy a copy. Before that it was Earthbound, because I can't fucking get that on any of the consoles that I own. ._.

Other than lack of access, I've never pirated a game. I've always had games to play, so I've no need to pirate others. And the ones that I was tempted to do so with just to see if they'd run ended up in a Humble Bundle. lol

My personal opinion is that any kind of barrier to the spread of knowledge or culture is harmful. I also think that copyright and patent laws do not protect content creators, artist or inventors but instead protect distributors and big business.

I could go on about how unfair it is to earn unlimited income for something you did once; how there are more people than ever living exclusively on art because of the lesser control from monopolies; how patents do not protect your right to use your creation but rather keep others from using it; how more money is spent in advertising than in the creative process... etc.

I work in sciences and my professional output is measured by scientific publications. Do you know how that works? Well, I write a project, I apply for grants and get funding, I setup my experiments and then perform them, I write my papers, I review/correct/edit other lab's papers for free, I PAY to publish my work in international journals and then I lose any rights to my work and have to pay to access it again. If I don't play this game my cv will be harmed and I will not be able to keep getting funded to perform my job. I would much rather have my work be free than kept under this kind of paywall.

That being said I do believe in paying a fair amount for the things you like and want to support. I also think that only the creator should be allowed to make money from his work.

1.- Well, i am divided here as im a former used of pirated games, i dont encourage it, but i have no moral right to say the opposite.

2.- Yes, 1 too many

3.- Around last september

4.- deadpool it was (i also downloaded castelvania, but i never installed it, i still have it since i have not cleaned my computer, but i dont plan to play it, i have many legit games in queue)

5.- I live in a third world country, 35 bucks is like a week salary here, so yeah, kinda hard to pay for AAA games. After playing COD 4 for a long time, i tried to go honest when mw2 was released, the damm thing costed me 60 dollars, that was my first steam game, and i regretted it a lot, then a friend gave me borderlands 1, and i stopped playing steam for like 2 years, just 2-3 months ago i learned about humble bundle. 5 - 6 dollar yes, i can afford that, thank you very much.

Came in here thinking this was gonna be about pirates not piracy... lol

" I know this is nothing new, but it seems like the "Burn him! He's a pirate!" days are over. "

In my country it is kind of opposite haha, people never cared about pirating until about 2 years ago that people started to buy original things. Many people still think i'm "wasting money" for buying games, but not as much as it was before.
I am one that didn't cared before either, but now i try to buy games i want to play. I still pirate, but only when i know i'll buy it when i get the chance.

I'm 34 from Argentina, when i was a kid i never saw a place to buy original games, then computers became more popular and stores appeared and CDs were expensive to pirate, so i began to buy games.

In 2001 there was a crisis in my country, so i started pirating again, when i was able to buy games i was using Linux, so i refused to pay to pay if i had to dual boot (also i wasn't gaming much at that time and i mostly play point & click and that was a weak period for that kind of games)

Then someone told me about Steam (digital distribution and great sales) and later i learnt about Steam for Linux, so now i buy all PC games even the ones for Windows.

Let me first state a fact: I'm a self-proclaimed hypocrite. My friends may argue about it but I do know how hypocritical I am.

1. What is your stance on pirating video games, or anything for that matter?

Strongly against it. Doing it as a mean to try the game is not acceptable. If there are no demos or any way for consumers to try the product, it is the developer's loss. If there's a law, a rule against it, to uphold it is the required thing to do. It's never legal to pirate games and no justification would be enough in front of the law.

2. Have you ever pirated a game?

Yes. I was born in a developing country with almost no means at all to buy games. Furthermore, I was not aware of what I did was wrong since the act of intellectual piracy was and is still not included in my country's education coursework. Yet, that is still not an acceptable excuse regardless the fact that there is no excuse I consider legitimate enough to pirate games. Now I live in the US, I had stopped pirating games for almost 3 years until recently a friend gave me a pirated copy of Starbound and greed consumed me (bought the game the day after due to the guilt)

3. When was the last time you pirated a game?

Last week.

4. What game was it?

As stated above, it was Starbound. Damn that is a good game.

5. Why did you do it?

Greed and peer pressure. Cheap-ass me had been wanting to try it for a long time even though I could afford it while my friend happened to possess a pirated copy of the game. Feeling guilty about it, I bought the game shortly after.

Its funny how people always talk about piracy - but ignore part of the reasons piracy exists.

I'm not talking about the people who will download a game regardless, just because they can.
I'm not even talking about the people (usually kids) who do not have the money to get multiple $60 titles a month. (Though I will touch on that.)

What I'm talking about is the increase in price for many games, especially from the AAA-scene - but decrease in quality and duration of these games.
More and more games are neglecting gameplay and story in favor of some easy, generic multiplayer experience. Throw in a few zombies or whatever theme is popular at the moment, then ship it and expect people to pay you for it. Because you've thrown down several million dollars in marketing.

GTA V would've been a big success, even if it had not put as much in marketing - yet corporate thinking insists that a game gets better if you sink more money into it. And human psychology insists that a cheap game has to be worse than a more expensive game.

Piracy can take revenue away from a developer who put a lot of time and effort into creating the product.
Course this is instantly the #1 argument given by many people, that piracy is stealing. Any pirated copy is revenue that won't go to the developer.
This isn't entirely true ofcourse, considering how many of is don't actually HAVE the money.
So the following argument would be, if you can't afford all the games, you have to choose which to play.

Yet with the industry relying on abusive methods that release complete and utter garbage. And half of the "reviews" being practically paid advertisement for that company, should we really be surprised that people resort to piracy?

Perhaps the question we should as is not whether piracy is a problem, but whether the corporate abuse that is going around in the world is a problem.
Its not impossible to create a quality product, be open about it and still make a ton of money.