I play pirates because I can. Don't need an excuse. It is fairly easy and getting in trouble currently non-existent. Hardly done it though since don't really play PC games anymore. Last game I played pirated was crysis which didn't even run well so it was a waste. Cod4 I bought for the 360 to play with friends.

People pirate games on steam too. While they can't play the game using the steam servers, they just play their pirated copy on pirated servers. I say this may be the same situation with COD4 too.

 So you wouldn't mind having a product you make stolen and made available to people for free, while your income barely covers the cost of having made your product?

That just sounds like a business plan that would end in bankruptcy.

You guys who think it's possible to block pirates really don't know what they do. It's actually really simple. The pirate buys 1 copy of the game, gives out his serial number for the installation, then when the game is installed the person who got it copies an already "approved" launcher file overtop of the standard launcher file. Basically fooling the game into thinking it's already been verified. And yes, it's a horrible thing to do to devs.

And as for the idea of forcing an approval before installation, there are pirates who make dummy servers too, so that doesn't work either.  Basically just gets verified for the pirated server.  It is true that Steam has much less piracy though, and I'm sure CoD4 has benefited from being available on Steam, despite the dev's complaints. 

The problem with PC games is that you won't know for sure that your PC can handle a game until you try it. Yes, there are minimum requirements, but sometimes a game is unplayable even if you are above the minimums. If a game seems too slow or you don't like it for any other reason, you can't take it back. Most stores won't allow you to return opened PC software. This is due to piracy of course. This also LEADS to more piracy as you can't try games that don't have demos before you buy them.

That's bullshit.  http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

That will check minimum and recommended. It will show you how far above minimum your system is.  It's even more bullshit an excuse because CoD4 (like most PC games today) has a freaking demo!  There is no excuse for stealing a game.  Maybe if it didn't have a demo and you just wanted to see if it ran, but how many people actually do that?  Certainly none of the ones playing online.  

@naztips - I'm in full agreement. systemrequiremntslab is a handy little tool.

HL2 was released via steam which is a good system. Once the game was installled it required you to have an internet connection to download a final check to ensure the game was an original then unlocked the game. Its certainly not flawless but a good attempt at combating piracy.

Or produce more mass-market games.

Or produce cheaper games.

Or stick to more expensive console games.

Or a magical hacker-proof system no one has figured out yet.

Many solutions, but all require drastic changes to PC gaming models.

Steam is the best system out right now to combat Piracy.  Games for Windows is the exact opposite. Microsoft, apparently out of some spite for game devs, has created the easiest system for piracy in the last decade.  Even freaking keygens work for Games for Windows games.  Something which hasn't worked for pirating games since the 90s.  They are ridiculously easy to hack, and it's another reason I think Microsoft needs to get their crap out of my PC games.