AND, (to add to my post at the end of the previous page) do you have any friends that had to work their way out of a bad situation?  Had to work their way out of poverty?  People who do that have to WORK for it.  To get a better life, they have to work hard for it.  Spending your time pirating software, living off of other people, who are earning their keep, is NOT how you improve your life.  And people who say "Yes, it's ok to widdle your time away on software you stole, on luxuries, rather than try to make your situation better" do not help them.

The answer is fairly simple.  The company(ies) that produced/published the game spent perhaps $10-30 m (staff costs, systems costs, support costs, facilities costs, packaging/distribution/marketing/etc.).  The pirate has no costs other than what he/she expended to acquire a copy of the game and duplicate it.

@Soleron: Yeah, isn't it strange how many communists we have in this thread.

@Onyxmeth: Ok, thanks. I don't personally have the experience, it was just an impression that i've got from peoples talks.

@Mendicate: Ok, so you wou,d price your product accordingly. But how'd you do that? Explain all the phases you need to do. Besides, Iran in general isn't too appealing to trade with, due to being in the US blacklist (although, this doesn't mean all the products).
I do agree that the publisher should work on their businessmodels and make atleast budget releases from platinum sellers, but then you'd need region locks (from which people tend to complain).

Something I see neglected in here is the fact that some people buy hardware because they know that they can modify it to play copied games. A large part of their reasoning for paying asking price for the hardware is that they don't need to purchase games so there is no ongoing cost. If you somehow make systems unhackable, I have hard time believing these people who previously only bought the hardware would suddenly become software consumers.

It wouldn't matter much.  Most of the profits for Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, etc. come from software, not hardware.  And most developers aren't directly affected by hardware sales at all.

Thanks and using wal mart as an example so you stole the key from a wal mart employee and then took it into the bathroom to take out the alarm pad, its stealing I teach my kids that is wrong

This is true and while i am no hardware wiz, i'd imagine making an unhackable system is close to impossible.  I'd also make the point that someone who can afford to purchase the system in the first place can't be so poor that it makes piracy a necessity to play games.

Without piracy, Microsoft wouldn't be where it is now.

If it's harming you, and you can't get rid of it. Figure out a way to turn things around and make it work for you.