What is your stance on piracy?

I pirate all the time. My MP3s 95% are all pirated copies. Games almost 95% original copies due to Steam, but I occasionally pirate if I find a price outrageous e.g Pinball FX2 Tables when they were first released, or Dust an Elysian tail before it got discounted heavily.

I used to be one but then I grew up, started earning some money and at the same time PC games became cheap (via digital distribution) so I quit piracy for ever. But I sometime use piracy as demo, to see if I want the game, especially if it is not one of my favourite genres but many people say good things about it. Also I used to download pirated to check if my pc could run them, but now I own a new one so that is not a problem.

I use piracy for movies and series. As for music I just use spotify so I don't download. If Greece gets netflix I will get rid of everything pirated but until then...

1. If piracy didn't exist, then I wouldn't be here. People can talk all they want about how it's "stealing" and how games are a luxury because publishers told them that piracy is hurting the market (They have to have a scapegoat for not selling more copies than it's physically possible of games which they spend a bloated budget on after all!). Well, to start liking games, you have to actually have access to some of them to begin with and not all parents have amazing income and/or willingness to pay for games (which most parents think would ruing their children) when said games are 1/4 of the money they have left after taking taxes and the overpriced water and electricity into consideration. Honestly, I can't see myself today if I didn't have open access to games. Wanting to make them is my leading motivation, I have no idea what I'd possibly be doing if I didn't have that motivation. And it came from playing games of course.
2. Obviously.
3. 2-3 years ago... before coming on Steam.
4. No idea. :D
5. Because I didn't know of any other place to get them. Even if I did, I didn't have my own card until about the time I got on Steam.

Baring the "bad" people who pirate just because they can, piracy is free advertisement for games. It's not a lost sale if the client in question is unwilling/unable to buy the product in the first place.

1.What is your stance on pirating video games, or anything for that matter?
YAAAAAAARRRRRRRR
2.Have you ever pirated a game?
Yes, in the past
3.When was the last time you pirated a game?
Funnily enough, some two weeks ago.
4.What game was it?
Black and White 1+2
I owned them both on retail at a time, but lost them. I wasn't willing to pay 40€ for them again :(
5.Why did you do it?
See question 3 ;)

All I have to say that on some degree pricay is actually good for the game industry. Poeple need to realize that whne osmeone downloads a game it doesn't do anything to harm the industry. The only thing that does harm the industry is when a person who could and would buy the game, downloads it instead, very douchy. But people need to realize that the majority of people who download games wouldn't buy those games, or couldn't afford them otherwise. So the harm isn't that big, not only that, but it contributes to the industry for the fact that it can make a person get into gaming because he was able to try it out for free, when otherwise he couldn't or wouldn't bother trying it for money. When I was a kid I couldn't afford buying games, so I started pirating games, and I really got into it, I was a really hard-core pirate, until almost 2 years ago when I finally could afford to buy games, and now I spend thousands of dollars on the industry, so if not pirating I doubt I would get into gaming, and I doubt I would start buying games out of nowhere in my 20s. And that's only the positive thing for the industry perspective, not gonna mention the huge advantage of having something free to increase the life quality of those who can't afford it.

1. I don't approve of pirating readily purchasable games. I don't really have issue with running emulators of older platforms and ROMs, even allowing for justification of "I own it in physical form" or not. Likewise with pirating older music or films. If I'm unsure of whether it's to my tastes I'll download it and if I like it I'll buy it, if not I'll get rid of it. Gone are the days when I'd share around tapes, CDs, videos and DVDs with friends because I just don't socialise as much these days. Comics too if it's stuff I own or is not readily available in physical form. Often it will lead to me buying or borrowing newer stuff by writers or artists.
2. Yes. Back in the Amiga days I'd say a two fifths of what I owned was purchased and much more pirated. I had a couple of PS one pirate games and about 9 years ago when I got my first proper gaming PC a friend used to burn a few things for me (without my asking). I also readily pirated DS games, again if I liked them I'd buy them if not delete them.
3. Sometime around 6 months ago. I chose to seek out and download a specific title.
4. Silent Hill 2 for PC.
5. It's one of my favourite games ever. I own it on PS2 and Xbox. I have no TV anymore so my PS2 is in the loft and the Xbox version won't work properly on EU 360 backwards compatibility. The recent HD reissues on 360 and PS3 got bad reviews due to being slightly broken. Turns out the pirate version I got didn't run brilliantly so I uninstalled it and deleted what I'd downloaded. I may yet end up buying the substandard 360 or PS3 version but I've been advised against it.

I don't care about other people pirating because they are not my problem. People making games usually turn to publishers to get paid for the game or projects like "Kickstarter" or "Early Access". I personally since i started working and can actually afford buying some games, do so only when i find the game worth the investment so that the studio can make more good games.

I have pirated a lot myself, and would admit that at some point at the very start (When still in school) i've done it because i just didn't want to pay for it, nor ask parents for the money (Nor actually had any income for that matter). Nowadays i do pirate only for the purpose of trial. Every single game i pirated for the last 5 years and i did actually like it i did buy.

A fair example would be the fact that publishers now use a lot of hype for their games and delivering complete rubbish Cough Battlefield 4 Cough Alien Colonial marines Cough Quite a long list >_> ...

The rest of the question seem a bit odd to me as they should not really matter >_> or at least you didn't give a reason why you need to know when was i pirating or what game it is.

I remember..

• making tons of copies of Wolf3D, Raptor, Doom etc on floppies way before I ever heard of an "internet"
• buying Doom from an computer store (on floppy) and got a virus from it.
• taping off the radio with Cassette tapes.
• recording movies on VHS.
• traveling to the city, renting PC games 15 years ago and making copies, then bringing them back, and renting more - repeating the process for days.
• going half on a PC game with a friend, and burning two copies (one each) and storing the orig in case our copy broke
• using Napster and taking 30+ mins for one song
• Music City Morpheus taking days to download one Cam Movie
• Several Binders Full of PC Games
• Modded XBox
• Modded PSP
  Etc

I Also Remember..

• My NES/GENESIS/SNES/GB/GBA/GB-SP/N64/GCN/PSX/PS2/XBOX/XB360/PS3/DS/2DS (w/litterly 1000's of purchased games)
• Hundreds of Music CD's Purchased
• 50+ VHS Movies Purchased
• 250+ DVD's sitting on Shelves in living room
• 100+ PC Box Titles purchased
• 800+ Steam titles
• 100+ Game Magazines/Guides
• My 5 + straight years as a XBLIVE Sub.

One thing I can honestly say I don't buy anymore though is.. music. I never bought a Digital Music Disc or individual song before. At this point, between software and youtube, and the radio and podcasts .. I don't see any need to. However I do frequent concerts (when we get them)

When I really enjoy a game I purchased I pirate it, To keep a backup that will always work.
I usually buy from GOG.
I think the last game I pirated/purchased was Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl.

1. It's ok, depending. I wouldnt pirate a small indie game, but I wouldnt mind pirating a game like... Call of Duty? FIFA? These companies dont really mind if some people pirate their game. They even know that's going to happen.
2. Of course, yes.
3. Yesterday I think, or today... I'm doing it right now.
4. Need for Speed Rivals and Splinter Cell Blacklist.
5. I want to play games but I cant afford them, so there is no other way... (I would love to be able to buy every game I want to play, though).

Its not a piracy problem, its a distribution problem

1. I hate pirates, if you like a game you should buy it to show some support and appreciation to the makers. Even if the company is a jerk one, you should support it so they can continue making the games you like.

2. Yes

3. I dont remember. 5 years ago maybe.

4. Dont remember either, but it was probably The Settlers 7.

5. In that time i was compelled to import games, so i could play it rightfully. It was too expensive. I did not know Steam existed.

1) What is your stance on pirating video games, or anything for that matter?
My stance on pirating is pretty similar to the one illustrated in the picture posted near the top of the comments. Pirating just to get the game for free is still wrong. However, if the game is completely unavailable in your area whether for reason of not being released or being too old to find, has ridiculous DRM (such as the new SimCity), or is severely overpriced then pirating a game is acceptable. ($60 for a new game does NOT fall under overpriced in this instance. Yes, I disagree with that price, but that's a different discussion.) It is also acceptable, but I still don't completely agree with it, if a game does not have a demo available to pirate a copy for a brief period to use as a demo of the game. However, many would simply decide that since they already have the game, there is no reason to buy it (I know many with this viewpoint, and it always pisses me off).

2) Have you ever pirated a game?
Many times

3) When was the last time you pirated a game?
Roughly a year ago, I think slightly less.

4) What game was it?
Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii

5) Why did you do it?
Xenoblade Chronicles is only available as a used copy for about $80 (Note that this price is for a USED copy, new copies are not available and buying a used copy means that you have to hope the last owner did not screw it up). This price is ridiculous for a game that was a year old as a North America release and 3 years old if judged from original release in Japan. Plus it has VERY low availability due to a limited run from the factory and would be very hard to find due to this.

I've Pirated Starship Troopers because i had lost my copy and could not locate another.

Check it out i loved it, Mainly because its also a fav film of mine clickies

I won't be reading all of the 111 coments, so this is like a blind post since I won't consider anything that is written in this topic beside the main post.
I pirated games since I am able to play games on PC, I think the first "big" game I pirated was Battlefield 2142, I downloaded one half and a friend downloaded the other, 256kbps internet bitches! eheheh. I do pirate many games, and when I had the time to play'em I pirated every singlegame that was released, I mean... the "big ones". And I had good reasons to do it:

• Freedom: I was young and had no money, by pirating I could enjoy a good game withou asking anyone for money.
• Poor guy: As said above, I had no money nor income. I got to know steam 2 or 3 years ago. Still I didn't know about the sales, and the prices were in USD. I'm not american therefore I thought "well, I'll need an internacional credit card... don't have one and won't ask my parents for one... Oh, there is my fav link to piratebay".
• I live in Brasil (HUE): here we pay abusive tax for everything that comes from abroad. And believe me, they ARE abusive. Then a physical copy of the game was really expensive. The minimum wage here is 724 BRL (about 300USD) and a game (PC) is 100-120 BRL, the console games are even more expensive (can reach 200 BRL as far as I know, don't own one).
• Social Condition: For these reasons, the only way I could "afford" a game was by pirating it. And this isn't a exclusive condition. I shared it with many of my friends, we couldn't buy games, but we wanted them. Hamachi, BITCH! If I bought a original game, my friends wouldn't buy it, therefore I'd have to play it alone.
  Now my piracy days are a little less intense. I still pirate games. But steam is powerful. I can buy games with 75%+ discounts. I can fourpack games to get a bigger discount and have friends playing with me. It's an awesome tool. I don't have to face abusive taxes (for a while, there are some politicians trying to tax it too... god I love this country). Steam solved many of my problems, but I still had one... MONEY. I'm always short on it. No, wait.... Not finished with the awesomeness of Steam. It managed to solve this problem too. CARDS! I can sell cards and get virtual money and use them to buy games!
  But as I said, my pirate days aren't over. I still download games. I download almost every game I buy, I have to try 'em before spending my hard earned money that I got in the market by selling/buying cards :P. And I pirate music because it's easy. It's easy to download, It's easy to copy, It's easy to share, It's easy to transfer between devices, It's the same quality.... etc. I pirate movies too, almost for the same reasons.

By the end of everything I wrote, as a last line, my pirate days will never be over, now it's a pride question. Are you reading this Apoka??? ARRR HOIST THE SAILS!
(PS.: english isn't my first language, not even sorry for the mistakes)
[EDIT: And all my formatation of the text got screwed]

ARRRRRRRRR!

- What is your stance on pirating video games, or anything for that matter?
It's bad but I can understand why some people do it (other people don't deserve mercy)

- Have you ever pirated a game?
Of course, who doesn't? I think the first game was a PSX one. My console broke so I don't usually trust internal chips. If I can afford a game I buy it (Say hello to my 250 PS2 video game collection). But I'm fine with external chips like Nintendo DS carts, specially for emulators. You don't affect the console warranty, you can remove the cart and sell the console, etc. Besides, I won't pay 35$ for New Super Mario Bros DS (a 2006 game). I love Nintendo but when I see for example ALL the Layton games at the same price (HA!) I don't feel bad for pirating them. That's why 95% of my games are used, sadly they don't usually provide Nintendo Stars

- When was the last time you pirated a game?
Today, LOL

What game was it?
To The Moon

Why did you do it?
I bought the game on Steam with my money, I finished the game and I enjoyed it. I wanted my girlfriend to try the game, but she doesn't have a Steam account because her PC is really old (I hope she will be able to run To The Moon). She isn't really into video games but I think she may could enjoy games like To The Moon or Dear Esther. Besides, she doesn't speak english and the spanish language is not implemented yet on the Steam version (despite what the store page says). I know you can patch the game to change the language with the official spanish translation but whatever, I just downloaded a spanish pirate copy for her. It's not like she was going to buy it anyway. He, I doubt she'll even finish the game.

EDIT:
I go pirate all the way on emulating consoles if its games are no longer being sold on stores (I'm looking at you, Snes). Sure, I could buy a used Snes console but most of the worthy games have stupidly high prices on ebay. That's why I don't mind digital games, they have "unlimited" stock (plus sales sometimes) so you don't need to browse obscure second hand forums. I've got over 400 Steam games, I don't think you can call me a pirate!

1. Neutral towards it. There are many reasons to pirate a game (Demo, Benchmark, Not enough money to purchase yet)so no pirate should take outright judgement.
2. Yes
3. Last fall
4. Remember Me, Dark Souls
5. Demoed (didn;t like so didn't buy), Benchmarked (because I heard many bad things about the game optimization. Ran well so I purchased)

I'm ok with piracy for a few reasons.
The game is no longer available to buy or you could not buy it in your area to start with. If you can't legally buy it then the company is not gonna loose a sale from you now are they?

The DRM is crippling. We've all seen cases of very stupidly done DRM that has pretty much crippled a game or even computers its on. I've seen this a few times where the DRM of a game or software interfered with other games and programs on a computer and required a reformat to get working.

Try before you buy because there is no demo or the demo is not actually representative of the game. There has been many cases of this over the years and some very recently where the demos were nothing like the final product.

Not actually sure your system can handle it. Again I have seen it where the specs all say it should run on the computer, but in reality you have to turn everything down as low as possible and even then its not very smooth.

Download a pirated version of a game you already own. Sometimes its just easier to get a pirated version running then the legit one. Sometimes the media you have a legit game on has died. The DRM servers for the game/music/movie have been removed and playing it is impossible without pirating it and you've already paid for it.

Pirated copy is actually better quality then the original item. Many times I have seen that a downloaded TV show, or song is better quality then one on TV (computer monitor is better then TV and the official music download is 128bit or lower while pirated version was 320bit, or official game/movie/show/song is heavily edited and the pirated one is unedited).

Yes I have pirated games, but its been a while. Don't actually remember what game it was and can't remember the reason I did it.

If they really wanted to fight piracy they need to do a few things...

Stop with the stupid DRM. I shouldn't have to have an always on connection to play a single player game or watch a movie or listen to music. I shouldn't have to connect to a web server before trying to play any game/movie/music. If web servers are down I should be able to play the game/movie/music with no issues. Steam is right on my limit of what I am ok with for DRM though it does piss me off sometimes when I want to go play a game and I can't get steam to connect.

Stop with stupid region locking/blocking with stuff on places like youtube. I can buy the music or movie here yet I am not allowed to see the musicvideo or trailer?

Lower the price. I would go to the theaters if it wasn't 11.50 for a matinee and thats for the normal 2D version non-Imax viewing. At those prices I can wait till its on Blu-ray and see it for cheaper and own it to watch it more then once. If prices for the theater were around 5 or 6 bucks, I would end up going to every movie I think I would like and still end up buying them on blu-ray eventually. I would buy more music if I could buy the songs at 50 cents a piece or as low as 25cents a piece when I buy 100 or more at a time. The digital versions should be less then half the price of the physical versions.

Sell/show it everywhere at the same time. It can be done and waiting to release something just pisses people off. I was watching Stargate years before any of my local friends were just because I downloaded off the net. Once it was actually on and caught up with what the US was seeing, I stopped downloading it. This went for other shows too.

Stop using piracy when your movie/tv show/CD/game doesn't sell well. There are many reasons why a game/movie/tv show/music doesn't do well, most of them have nothing to do with piracy. In fact in many cases piracy actually helps in the sales as proven by many studies done by many governments around the world. Those studies showed that pirates usually buy on average 30% more stuff then non-pirates do.

Stop telling us that we are only licensing something we have bought just because its digital. I paid for it with real money, its mine, I will do with it as I please. As long as I am not trying to sell it and pass it off as my own then you should have no say in what I legally do with my legally bought stuff on my legally bought hardware. I will rip any songs and movies I want from CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays I bought onto my computer. Its handier for me to do that than lug around a whole bunch of discs.

Stop trying to get laws made that make everyone a criminal. In my country we are legally allowed to rip movies and songs from discs, as long as it doesn't by pass any DRM. The problem with that is that every single CD and DVD/Blu-ray has DRM.

Stop with the hypocrisy. How many times have we seen the RIAA claim someone should pay 100,000 times actual damage for downloading 1 song, yet when they get nailed for copyright infringement they scream and cry that 10 times actual damage is too much. Stop trying to sue everyone into oblivion. It will not actually get you any money, it will just cost you money and will just make things far worse as it will drive more people to piracy.

Stop with the 1 pirated item = 1 lost download. No it doesn't and I covered this already with the government studies. People can now buy 1 song at a time, this is why CD sales have plunged. No longer do people have to buy an over price CD for just 1 or 2 songs.

As you can sell, this sort of thing really pisses me off and I end up going on rants about it...

TL/DR
Copyright industry stupid, need to do things smarter and not piss off people.

I'm neutral about it, even if it's for just for being greedy.

1. It's not wrong but far from good. I don't think it can be concidered stealing, you are not sustracting it from anywhere is just a unauthorized copy. Many developers understand the problem and try to deal with it in a mature way, the publishers are the ones that call it a crime. On the pirate end: you are not supposed to do it and you do it anyway... so yeah is being inmature.
2. Yes, I'm guilty. I did it a lot untill about 1 or 2 years ago, then I started studing to be a computer engineer and understanded that it is hard work and the software makers(& artists) deserve the money.
3. Last year, 6~8 months ago I guess.
4. Slender the Arrival.
5. Doubted the game was good and didn't want to take the risk, and I didn't end up liking it so I don't regret what I did.

we need threads about piracy in a gifting community?

What is your stance on pirating video games, or anything for that matter?
It is really simple - if the product is good it will find it customers and they will pay for it. All that bs about how much piracy cost is laughable. There is no way to accurately measure it. The analogy they use all the time (mostly when it comes to movies) "you wouldn't steal a car" doesn't even need a comment. Same goes for music, movies, etc.
Have you ever pirated a game?
Yes
When was the last time you pirated a game?
2-3 years
What game was it?
Skyrim
Why did you do it?
Wasn't sure how my previous PC would handle it.

I don't see piracy as a problem. It doesn't harm sales as publishers think it does, only if the game is not that great as they think it is, people pirate it, see that it is not worth their money and don't buy it - but in this case we can talk about that the piracy hurts the sale. This all reminds me all the press back when Bulletstorm was not successful as they though it would be.

Not exactly sure if getting an emulator for old classic consoles like the NES, Super Nintendo, n64, and sega genesis is considered pirating? I use to use an emulator a lot for older games because my parents would not allow me to buy any old consoles (No idea why, I think they thought my 360 and pc was enough) But now that I am old enough and have become a bit of a collector I own the old consoles and games that I use to emulate. To me emulators aren't the same as playing the actual game (Because it's on your pc and not console), So I use to try the games out on a emulator, then buy them if I like them. Now I don't use a emulator anymore, as I own most of the classic games I like. Know I mostly just pc game (None of my pc games are pirated) but I still like to go back to my classic consoles once in awhile:P