I don't believe in piracy. If you can't afford to buy it, wait until you can. You will enjoy that much more when you do. Companies make games to make money, without the money many games would not be made. Anybody that thinks that games like Halo, MGS, FF, Mario, etc. were made only because of passion are full of BS... These were made by passionate people that had a great idea and wanted to share and make money off the idea.

As for discontinued stuff... I can see the logic. But, personally I don't agree and therefore don't do it.

"Yeah, if by some miracle pirating suddenly stopped and became impossible would anyone really believe those people would sit at home with no games, movies, or music and just twiddle their thumbs?

Of course not, they would actually go buy those games they're pirating."

Game over!

I mean "you" collectively, and I'm just pointing out your first sentence which too many people use.

You missed my edit at the end:

"Again I'll say, I download movies sometimes, but I don't try to justify it with crap arguments like that. It's not, "I would never buy The Professional, so I downloaded it this week and watched it,"
it's, "I don't want to buy The Professional, and I'm not going to buy it now or any time soon, I'd rather just download it." So that's what I did...and that's one less The Professional sale."

I download movies probably about once every 2 months...and they're typically movies between theater release and DVD release...that dead zone where you cannot watch the movie, but I missed it or want to show it to friends, etc.

I don't really care about a few movies and some music downloads. But your first "justification" is what uber-pirates use and it's stupid. I use Netflix, I buy a few CDs, and all my games...I can't stand people who pirate damn near everything, that's all. You're (general again) not that poor.

My personal opinion. Pirating sucks.

Pirated things feel shallow.

On other people pirating?

Hard to say. People pretend it's cut and dry one way or the other but it isn't. Studies on the effects of piracy vary. Most legitamite studies seems to suggest it's neither helps nor hurts sales, as for most people having more songs to listen to means you listen to more music which means you buy more cds.

Most people aren't wired "well if I can download all these CDs then i'll just download them and not buy any" for some reason. Most of the people who are like that seem to be the people that didn't buy CDs anyway.

Games may or may not be different considering you need much less of them to get by. The average person only needs one every couple months. Of course the people pirating aren't exactly the average person.

Microsoft seems to think piracy is a helpful marketing tool however, as their official company line is "don't pirate, but if you do pirate, pirate our stuff and not our competitors stuff."

Then you've got general economic realities, where some people live, where a video game or computer game would cost more then they make in a couple months... so it's not a case of people being cheap so much as not being able to afford it.

So, like most things. It's not a broad "It's good" or "It's bad" thing. It's something that varies from person to person. To me it seems likely that as a worldwide phenom is likely not harming anything though. As like it's been shown with music that piracy can actually create customers because some people just won't give things a shot because price is a barrier preventing them from trying something they may or may not like.

I mean how many people actually bought a Paint Shop program or something similar without actually trying it on a school or buisness computer first? (or pirated copy.)  Generally piracy tends to hurt the "bigger" guys and help the smaller guys in music.  I wonder if the trend follows elsewhere.

 I can't say anything about the music or movie industry but the budget on games are very tight.  Like I said: game developers don't live rockstar lives.  Even the leads make as much as a good programmer/engineer. 

Making games is in fact all about making money (that's how you define a successful game) but you don't get into making games to make a lot of money.  Like I said, my fiance makes about 2/3 in an entry level job more than I make.  Granted level designers are generally paid less than artists and programmers, but still none of those disciplines are in it for the money.

it is very bad

I'm with the people that think it's fine as long as it's out of print. I actually usually try to buy older, out of print games off ebay and such though. Even if it's not supporting the industry, I like having the actual packaging and stuff, and it'll in many cases at least support a gamer who might spend that money on other games (and spare them from taking it in the ass selling games at EB/Gamestop). However, sometimes ebay prices are down right criminal. Some rare games sell for $200+. I'd feel more guilty paying such absurd prices than I would pirating the game in those cases.

As for my feeling about people pirating available stuff, I'm pretty neutral. While there are certainly people that have the money and would buy a game if piracy weren't an option, the idea that every copy downloaded is a sale lost is absurd. It doesn't make it right or justify it in anyway, but if there was no chance of the person buying the game anyway, it's not all that damaging to the industry and is a pretty minor offense imo.

Of course there are people that simply look at it as a way to get things for free regardless of their financial ability to make the purchase. I have absolutely no love for these people and this is a serious problem. However, in my personal experiences, I think this type of pirate is much rarer than the industry leads people to believe. I've known plenty of people with modded consoles and stuff(especially in college), and all of them did buy games as their budgets permitted.

I am talking about pirating in general, which is much bigger in movies and music than it is in games. Movies and music require nothing much to be done, while pirating games requires hardware mods. Plus, I already said that games deserve to be purchased more than movies and music. Games are not really overpriced (not as much anyway), but movies and music are way overpriced. Lower the prices, give those spoiled celebrities less money, then you will sell more copies...

Pirating games is dumb, it can be so difficult and in the end is usually easier to just buy the game.

Pirating movies, and tv shows and what not, isn't as bad, I mean paying $50-$100 for ONE season of a TV show, thats ridiculous, and then after paying $10 to go see a movie in theaters and then another $20-$30 to get it months later on disc, seems like a rip off.

Piracy is stealing, that's all. There is no difference between downloading a movie and stealing someone's property.