There was a company that made a game (I forget the name of it), but it had a bug in it that got fixed just before it went into production. Hilariously enough, it was pirated before it fully went to full distribution. After it launched, the company's forums were filled with people complaining about the bug while the developers were busily going "Uh huh, how interesting."

I know Titan Quest for the PC a problem like this.  The DRM check would crash the game at the load screen if the game was pirated.  Because of this, the game got a reputation on the internet as being full of bugs, and negatively affected sales.

Yes!  That was the game I was thinking of.  Thank you for reminding me.

^I think Assassin's Creed had a similar bug thingy nestled in by someone at Ubisoft (at least that was what was speculated in the weeks after the bugged torrent was released). You could play everything normally but not enter Jerusalem in the pirated (leaked) version of AC for PC.

Hm, I never had a problem like that? Though at a certain point (or, to be precise, place) of the game it would crash pretty much always.

Anyway, piracy is bad but DRM is even worse. Right now DRM is one of those things that actually provokes me into pirating the game. (Steam is one of those DRM systems.) Then there's boycotting some companies but things can change and it's not that provoking compared to DRM. I'd really like to support some great games but I don't want to support DRM. I'd also like to say that if I like a game, I'm pretty likely to buy it as well. Of course there's these stupid pirates that don't understand they're actually hurting the industry by pirating everything and paying for nothing, just because they can get it for free. On the other hand, there's  these idiots who think that every pirate is evil, and piracy is a theft.

All in all, I accept piracy in those cases where it doesn't affect sales, and understand and somewhat accept piracy in some other cases (DRM being the most obvious example).

Oh, and to respond to the OP: there's no fact that publishers should switch to consoles only; it's no fact, and probably doesn't even make much sense. Even with these piracy numbers many games sell very well so it's always slightly more profit than with a console-only release. Besides, PC gaming seems to be developing new business models (mostly microtransactions, which happens to be something I hate).

That's a poor justification for piracy.

"I don't like the way they package their game so I will illegally download their game then play and enjoy it, all without paying."

I'm not trying to justify piracy; I'm just explaining one reason I have. If the game has DRM, I almost certainly won't pay for it but DRM will not stop me from playing either if the game interests me enough. Well, unless they make pirating too hard. And as I said, in general I will support good games (and no, I don't usually complete bad games and then say I didn't like it and thus won't buy it; instead, I just don't complete it and then say I didn't like it).

And, piracy won't hurt anyone if the pirate wouldn't have bought the game anyway. And please do notice the 'if' I put there, it's very essential.

Id have to agree.   Companies claim all these losses due to piracy yet how many of those people acually would buy the game if you couldn't download it for free.  The current system works fine.  Log the CD key when trying to play multiplayer.  All this DRM crap and install limits stuff is not needed

The bottom line is that you want to play the game without paying for it.  DRM is just an excuse.  If games didn't have it then you'd just find another excuse.

@bolded part:  You'd look a lot less stupid right now had you read the OP.  Go read it now and compare it to your bolded statement.  Feel free to ask if you need me to play "Connect the dots" for you.

Piracy and people whinging about DRM is what is driving developers towards stuff like OnLive. Gaming as a service is uncrackable - it also sucks though.

Flowerworks (PC) is just about ready for release, and I'm real curious to see how it goes. What people think of our "DRM solution" (*), how long before it ends up on the torrents, whether people buy it... and more.

Its basically going to determine whether we bother to continue supporting the PC as a platform - or force games online... or just drop *all* PC support, and head to consoles exclusively.

(* - sorry, yes we do have a DRM solution - we would have to be insane to release an unlocked, instantly copyable PC game to the public. That said, we allow people to unlock/register the game on as many PCs as they like once they buy it...)