In the past I played pirated games at the university and I had some, currently I have only one, and only because it wasn't sold anymore when I decided to try it.
I buy mostly budget editions, so I don't spend very much to do the right thing, moreover this way I help games I love to enjoy a longer lasting success. And this way I more easily avoid rip-offs, up until now I've been strongly disappointed very few times, twice because the games had gameplay and controls so crappy to ruin a good idea, and a few other times because there were critical bugs or HW incompatibilities and the developer had stopped patching them despite keeping on selling them, although in budget editions.

I used to be a major pirate back in my youth. Now I'm a law abiding do gooder.

Back in the days of the Spectrum mid 1980's game media was cassette tapes and pretty much all of us had a twin deck dub stereo.

We were all about 11-13 years of age in my little video game group but my god we were organised.

I would split the weeks new releases up between the group.

The rules were simple.

1. We take it in strict order to purchase a new game with our own money.
2. Once purchased copies are made and distributed on the Monday at school.
3. You keep the original titles you bought.

The group was about 10 strong so more than enough to cover the weekly new releases.

However the reasons we did it were simple.

We had no income. Saved up pocket money was all we had to purchase games with and that meant for me 1 game a month MAX.

Now I buy games second hand mainly and resell them as soon as I am done.

It means I can easily fund my gaming habit as each game only costs me a few bucks to own before I pass it on.

I will ocassionally buy a new release game but it has to press all the right buttons.

I dont pirate anymore as I want the videogame market to do well. I'm a little dis allusioned however by the monster the VG world has become.

Call me an old romantic but the industry I grew up with seems to have lost a lot of its soul as it has grown up.

not me, i honestly hate stealing. i always put myself in their shoes. if i made something and put my heart and soul into it, i wouldnt want it to just be stolen

Yup I pirate, I have over 600 cds and over 500 dvd's of games, music and movies. And no I wouldn't pay for any of those if I had to, I just can't afford it, where I live you either use money to buy food, clothing pay the rent etc, or you buy games, no one will prioritize something immaterial which you can also get for free. And where I live games also cost about 100 dollars brand new, and people make about 7 to 10 times less money so you do the math, would you pay the equivalent of 1000 dollars for a game and 6000 dollars for a machine that only plays games, with each game costing an equivalent of at least 400 bucks?

So in a legit gamer's mind, the question is whether he should spend 60 bucks on a game, In my mind it's whether that game is worth the price of two blank dvd's. Yes I'm actually that poor my family consists of 4 people, 3 of which have jobs and they make about 1500 dollars together in a month, if I were to take a job I would make about 100 dollars month, maybe 150.

Pirate? I'm no damn Pirate!!! I'm a NINJA

I don't download games, I buy them.

I do however download Movies and Music, But if I like it I'll buy the Movie on Blu-Ray or DvD.


Lets just say that they have earn more money from me then what they have lost.

When I was young and not a computer engineer and didn't really think it through I pirated. Everyone was doing it... But I learned and now I support those who provide good entertainment.

The argument that you wouldn't have payed $$ anyways doesn't make it right. These companies are trying to provide entertainment and get paid for it. If you don't pay for it, it isn't your right to be able to enjoy the entertainment they created for free. The copying bits thing doesn't even matter, it is a matter of using someone else's hard work for your own entertainment without providing proper compensation.

This is really an excellent point, and it brings to mind the idea that having an idea which is inherently yours is a novel concept in the scope of human history. For as long as we have had oral storytelling and writing, the relaying of stories by people who heard them was not only expected, it was necessary.

I have to wonder if this act of expecting compensation for a creation is actually reasonable in a historical sense.

Rapidshare and Megaupload FTW....
I never pirate games tho.

Yeah, sure, I never denied it, I pirate all the time. Not only original games are expensive here, they're even very difficult to find, heck, I'm sure that there's not a single place withing 15-30 mins of my home that sells original games.

Before College = Pirate
First Few Years in Work Force = Pirate
Now That I Have Money = Support Developers by Buying All My Games