Can't speak for others, but I would! For example, Mother 3 is a game that's unavailable outside of Japan and I could simply play the translated version on an emulator, but ever since I've heard those rumors about a localization I've been waiting to play it, with hope that it might actually happen this time so I can buy the game instead of pirating it.

Piracy and the "loss of potential income" is debatable on its own.

If the developer is already gone and noone sells the game anymore - it would be morally much worse to not play the game anyway. Whoever made the game certainly didn't wish for it to be forgotten once it is no longer available or officially supported.

It's still an excuse. You can keep looking for a better deal or wait for a rerelease which happens when there is enough interest like high prices on Ebay. Piracy doesn't show intent to buy, used game sales do.

I don't really have a problem with occasional piracy for personal use. Just when people start listing reasons why piracy is better or even somehow defensible moralistically. By convincing other people that piracy is ok, people will take sales away from the industry.

"Piracy doesn't show intent to buy, but used sales do" To a publisher both equal zero money going into their bank account though, in fact a user might play a pirated copy and at a point because of the quality of the product go and buy a copy of the game later on (I've done this for several of the psp games I pirated, when I seen them pop up on the Vita's PSN store I bought them knowing they were good games) but if you buy a pre owned copy you are most likely not going to go and buy another new copy of the game later on because you have paid someone in gamestop or Ebay for the bits on the disc, having paid money for it means that you no longer have a moral issue with playing the game... even though that money is going no where near the original code developer or publisher, it's a strange one.

I have tons of used games in my collection btw... I'm just being the devils advocate for "why is one fine, but the other not" when neither give the cash to where it should be ending up anyway.

That's probably where I'll cross the line.

I've always had piracy as my last option. I've only pirated a few games during my life

True, that's a good point and I've done it myself that way too. For example Solaris (1972) watched it on you tube first then bought it when the blu-ray became available in Canada. The couple second hand movies I've bought never made the publisher any exta money. However that's the right of first sale, the second hand object still has value. By pirating you diminish the value of that item. You diminish the value of that pre-owned game, which means the person that sold that game to gamestop gets less in return and thus has less to spend on new games, from which the profits do go to the publisher.

Piracy is the same as printing money, doesn't hurt anyone directly and at small enough scale it won't make a difference. Yet if everyone would pirate there would be no more games industry.

I would argue piracy has had an effect on PC games. To compete, games on PC hit very low prices. Stark contrast to Nintendo games that keep their value for a long time. As a result I'm not buying any PC games new anymore, just wait for a sale. Can't resell physical PC copies. I have taken bigger chances on new console games, resold some of them to buy more games, and bought some second hand games as well. That's still supporting the industry. My guess is that the occasional pirated game leading to a sale is contributing much less than the second hand market is fueling new sales.

I'm far far from innocent. I grew up thinking piracy was the norm. I don't think I ever paid for a game until I was 18. Copy parties were going on all the time, everyone did it, so you do it too. Even when I switched to buying games people still gave me tons of CDs with games to try out. As piracy diminished the games kept getting better and better, coincidence?

Then I got a job making software. Kinda wakes you up when you see your stuff pirated and available for free download. Especially at a time when the company had to downsize and let people go.

I've bought a bunch of games I pirated later or their sequels. Not that makes much of a difference now. I spend my money on partying, high end PC, blank vhs tapes and 3.5" discs instead of buying games and movies. It all turned out allright, thanks to the people that did buy the games I pirated.

Anyway the thread is about pirating old games. It it's abandonware it's fine imo. It's a grey area though, NES cartridges still have value. A 5.25" floppy for KQ1, not so much. Although an original box is probably a collector's item. Ofcourse when it reaches collector status, a digital copy is not going to reduce its value, more likely the opposite. I'm going in circles :)

Nowadays I buy remasters of both games and movies. I don't feel entitled to the convenience or upgrades of a digital copy because I've already bought the content once before. I did download Jet set willy II and Frontier first encounters for nostalgia sake. I'm lazy too, my msx broke a long time ago and my FFE copy is somewhere in a moving box. (Poor excuse, never paid for JSW2, tape copy)

I'm just saying you can find Megaman 2.