I don't usually mind when it's pirating in these conditions. Pirating is only hurting the publisher and developer if it's a lost sale. If the person's only options are pirating or not gaming, then they may as well pirate. They are neutral to loss of sales. It's people that are well enough off and use pirating as a means of not paying for games they would otherwise buy that is hurting the industry. Publishers need to find a less costly way to get games into the hands of those nations or just stop bitching about it. Charging a country that makes less money on average more for a game than a well developed nation is just asking for that population to think up their own way of getting the games.

For many people this stuff is just too expensive.

I must agree. As any JRPG lover in Europe knows, many games aren´t published in here. So publishers themself don´t want any money. So why I shoul give them?

Next problem, as least for me, is quality of the game. And in this, I mean quality altogether. Not only technical aspect of the game, graphics and such, but even lenght of the game, replayability, and so on. If the game is alhough good, but very short and with no bonuses, I probably do not buy. In America, I would rent it, but here, in Czech Republic it´s not possible.

because ou don't have to pay for the games? I feel like free is a price that everyone enjoys. I do it to test games out to see if they're worth buying.

How?  If the person never had the money to spend, then the developer couldn't get any.  You cannot get blood from stone by squeezing it, and you can't get cash from a poor man by demanding it.  Either the dev starves or they don't, and piracy has no effect on that whatsoever.  If the starved gamer can't buy games, they can't buy games.  That's the reality of this subject.  People seem to think that these companies could magically make millions or even billions more if piracy didn't exist, but there is absolutely no money to make this happen.  If pirates had the money to spend, they wouldn't be pirates.

I live in Sweden and it's a very rich country. Games don't cost a lot here (new console games $75 but that's because the 25% tax added) but most people are still pirates. And the government approves it since file sharing isn't illegal.

All my friends pirate their games. And modded X360's are popular. Most gamers only buy games for online play (because of the tough CD key check), and people that pay for their single player games are basically called "dumb suckers".

Of course this mentality and culture inspires me too.

It's only a matter of time before all games connect to the internet. Increasingly, game publishers are pushing online content which is very difficult to pirate. Piracy will always be possible, however it will be much harder and less rewarding.

Piracy can't be hurting publishers that much; otherwise there would be more demand for a less easily pirated storage medium. Look what happened with the Gamecube - it had a difficult to pirate medium and none of the publishers really supported it.

I know it was still possible to make back-ups, but it was more difficult. Who doesn't own a dual layer DVD burner (all that is required to burn Wii and XBOX 360 games)?

The Wii, you dont need a dual layer. Only one game is dual layer and that is super smash.

the above applies very true in countries like america, where games are reasonably priced and people pirate anyway. In countries where a game cost half a month's wage, publishers need to take the view of "I can sell it pretty cheap and make some money, or leave it as it is and have piracy issues in those countries". Sure there will be an issue with people importing games from those regions but thats were region controls come in handy.

Companies core mistake is blaming poor sales on piracy before blaming it on the quality of the game (its easier to blame someone else then perform a harsh self assessment). Piracy is just one way companies can loose money, poor products or products people aren't interested in is majorly big as well. I'm not about to make the RIAA assumption that every person that pirates a game would of brought the game if they couldn't pirate because thats truely flawed logic. Publishers do need to price games based on market conditions in that country rather then going "well americans pay $60 for a game, thats about a months wage in country X, but we'll charge that much anyway".

on the "If pirates had the money to spend, they wouldn't be pirates." comment... Generally this doesn't matter, people with money also pirate. This is why services like XLA,PSN,wiiware are hitting back, because they are producing fun simple games for $10-$15 which for alot of people is an easy impulse buy that they can do from home. Alot of piracy from people with money is simply because its easier to download the game then it is to drive to the store and pick up a copy.