The real question is, how many of those pirated copies belong to people who would have bought the game if they didn't pirate it?  Piracy is not a problem unless it actually reduces the sales of the game.

If they are playing online, then they are clearly abusing the system.  Yeah, you can say "Oh, but they wouldn't have bought it in the first place" but then they shouldn't play it.  Or at the least, stick to the damn demo.  That's what it's there for. 

COD4 has ranked stats and stuff? if that isn't enough for people to buy the game then well, I don't think there's more to do than that (except of course more protection, but we know that's kinda impossible)

even BF2142 (which many said it was more a mod than a full game) got an incredible amount of players with original games even here in Brazil... (and I don't know how pirated servers work in this game because of the login thing even playing SP - but I guess it's not very different from other games)

 Disagree strongly. If you do not believe that there is such a thing as intellectual property, and therefore you think "stealing" intellectual property is a victimless crime, great for you. Unfortunately, you are incorrect. It harms every one of us here who want good games. The more profit a company or industry makes, the better the diversity of product.

It's worth noting that the vast majority of piraters are not in North America. Most of them come from Korea.

I feel strongly about this issue in part because I am a software engineer. I spend time writing the code that does what the users want. I recognize that most pirated games would not be purchased copies without piracy but it does not give the pirates the right to use people's ideas and work for free. Fortunately, nobody would bother pirating my stuff (since it is not games). :)

Although, I did love the game Pirates. 

 There are indeed many pirates there. But Sweden is also big on piracy, both Razor 1911 and DEVIANT have mostly Swedish coders among them. This is because of the liberal nature of Swedish copyrighting laws and agreements.

No matter what dev's come up with, pirates are rarely more than a small step behind. The longest it has ever taken to crack a game is either Half-Life 2 or Bioshock, can't remember which.

The reason so many in Norway download illegally is the price of games; most games cost around 100$ or slightly less (PC games are a tad cheaper), so it goes without saying that most really wouldn't get any gaming done if they were completely "straight". I don't condone it, but I certainly understand it from a gamers point of view!

Economically speaking, I am not incorrect. My point is that the two following actions are the same, in regards to profitability:

- pirating a game

- not buying it

Either way, the company is not going to get any money from that person. I was thinking about the economical perspective only.

Splinter Cell 3 took over a year to crack. Those two games don't even come close to the longest (both within a week).