I believe so far in this thread we already had like 4 of the 10 most common reasons people claim they pirate software.

Lets see :

1) I was going to buy it anyway !

2) DRM made me do it !

3) I wasn't going to buy it anyway.

4) Piracy is not real theft !

Why don't you guys just go ahead and admit you're doing it for reason 10  :

I'm a cheap fuck and I deserve to have every game I want for free......

Testing computers, sometimes I put my HD in other PC to test some stuff (so basicly, I changed the whole PC), I wanna test Spore in Ubuntu (so, I think I'll have to test loads of emulators, wine, crossover, cedega), I have XP32 and 64. I hate vista, but I have to install vista32 and 64 for some users, etc...       

The better solution for piracy is like Blizzard does with Diablo2, you can play offline a pirated edition, but after some days you want to trade some itens online, so you buy a original version. Same think with Steam.   

They should make a DRM-free game, even if it is a single playes, put some resources to upgrade online, trade itens, or verify the serial with the server IF you conect (but never make it mandatory). Pirates will have a bad time disconecting every time they play with a invalid serial to avoid been "baned" and will buy the game (except if they didn't have money).

Offcourse, they should AWAYS sell the game online, or at least the serial, if you buy a game in Brazil, you have to pay a stuppid tax for it, downloading VC games on the wii don't, I already spent a good money in VC, but is impossible to import games in CDs...

Here is how i understood it, you were challenging that user to answer why is piracy is illegal, which is a pointless question because of the reasons i have stated before. A better question to answer would be : If piracy is not stealing then how come you get the same exact product as somebody who paid 50-60$ for it? Or even better do you have any idea what the hell intellectual property is?

I will not deny that I pirate games, I am not going to justify it because:

1. I could care less about morals

2. I cant afford every game out there, in the past year i must have spent at least 2k$ on gaming hardware and about as much on software. There are mediocre games like Spore that i am just not willing to pay for it. And yes Spore is mediocre in my opinion, after 4 hours of playing it I came to a conclusion that it is nothing more than a collection of several dumbed down genres. I would rather play 5 games that excel at what they are doing than 1 game that tries to do everything, aka Too Human syndrome.

So a I'm a cheap fuck and I deserve to have every game I want for free...... (as quoted from Ail) desrcibes me pretty well

But in the end do i think that piracy hurts developers? Nope, the cases where the developers are hurt and countered by the cases where the developers benefited from it. Piracy is the cheapest form of advertisement which can be very powerful if the game is good. I know I would have never bought Dawn of War and 3 of its expansion if I did not pirate the original game.

Depends on the site/source. I don't do public torrents so I'm at minimal risk of getting malware. I doubt many people would risk their account on a private torrent site by uploading a bad copy.

I don't care why you pirate games (though the money excuse is still bullshit) but I do at least respect you admit you're a cheap fuck and that makes you somewhat better than the people that sit there and lie to themselves.

And yes, piracy does hurt developers.  That is why so many of them do not like putting their games on PC's or do not give their PC version half the attention they give their console versions.  Just because you don't think it doesn't mean that's the way it is.

I didn't say the risk was low or high.

All I said is that if you get malware from such a site you can't blame anyone but you...........

The argument of buying it anyways is good for me, for example, i just downloaded a leaked copy of the new Metallica album, but i have it pre-ordered on Amazon for some time now, so i bought the original CD... I do not download anything that i'm not gonna buy later, that's my practice on movies and music, on games is different for me because i usually get betas, and i wait for release date to buy the full game, and i don't like modding consoles unless is software and it's used to enhance the console (like the PSP, i buy the UMDs, but i have the firmware hacked to dump them in my memory card to play the game more silent and faster, god i hate UMDs)...

@Ail: I'm probably at greater risk of someone running up to me in public and using a staple gun on my balls. Sure, the potential is there (for malware), but it would be quickly caught and removed before many people had a chance to get it and the offender most likely banned. It would be an astonishingly rare occurance on a private site. Again, anyone who uploaded something with malware would be banned. On a public site i'd assume it would be much riskier.

From what I have read in interviews with developers, the main issue is the fact that they dont want to optimize the game for all different possibilities of Cpu, ram and video card.

Ail and twestern thank you for amusing me with your little crusade against piracy. It is fun to observe people battle against something that causes very little damage while ignoring a much bigger threat, used game sales.

Again, if your company makes the software and it's proven that the malware in the pirated copy is from your respectable and serious company (and not put by a cracker or an outsider to your company), then it doesn't matter why you did it, you're in trouble...

Windows is a classic example, some pirated versions of Windows have malware, but the affected can't sue Microsoft because they don't have any proof that Microsoft put that code there, and if they did, and if there's not definitive evidence they'll never admit it...