Do you buy games after pirating them?

[Lotus Victoria]

Hello champions, good to see you.

First things first - I'm not promoting piracy!!!!! - I'm pretty sure that some of you, if not most of you, have already pirated a thing or two in your entire life and, to be sincere, no shame in that. Second, I don't work for FBI or CIA, so don't worry, I won't arrest you (hehehe) .

Seriously though:

Yesterday I've read an article that said that piracy helps to sell more games, so that gave me the question:

Do you buy a game after pirating it?

I don't pirate that many games anymore, as I can afford them now, but my response to that question is yes. If I like a game, I'll buy it in no time, and I'll even play it again, if I'm not burned out on it.

And you?

[Deleted]

Yup. Rarely pirate as i usually play online games, but the last example was skyrim.

[Deleted]

I recently bought games on steam which I - back then as a child - could not afford at retail price, therefore pirated it. I even bought sequels without really planning to play/finish them. I plan to buy at least one game (or complete franchise) I enjoyed as a child on any steam sale comming in the future.

For today I pirate any singleplayer game and buy it midway through or after finishing the game if I liked it and don't buy it if I quit early on because I didn't like it. Seems this is my morally gray way for no more demo versions these days.

[Deleted]

Do you download game images, then burn them on DVDs/BluRays, and then sell them for profit? No? Then you don't "pirate games".

[jellmoo]

Do you download game images, then burn them on DVDs/BluRays, and then sell them for profit? No? Then you don't "pirate games".

Ugh... It's a commonly accepted term for using a product that you haven't paid for. So yes, it's "pirating" in the context of the discussion.

[unholytestament]

Fun fact: The vast majority of the games I have "pirated" are the GOG releases of games I owned way back in the day and can't be bothered to toy with DOSBox to get working again.

[vindicatorx]

I don't pirate anything anymore.

[dope_danny]

I don't pirate games. I'm a horrible cynic and the games industry has taught me a few games are worth purchasing the rest are not. I neither purchase them nor pirate them. If i wasnt willing to buy a game then i am certainly not willing to invest my time in it when its better spent elsewhere.

[vipers]

no i dont pirate games

[Morgaith]

If i was planning to buy the game in the first place and simply used piracy as a demo? Yes i do.


I'm not buying games that i've pirated if i never had the intention of buying them in the first place though.

[Danner]

The main reason I was pirating as a child was because I did not have any money whatsoever. Mostly those games are so old now that it's ridiculous to even consider buying them.

The main reason I was pirating as an young adult was that it was impossible to find the game I wanted in any shop. The games I liked were not sold in stores, or stuck behind some insane "European customers enjoy waiting longer for new game releases" policy (yes, that is an actual quote). I have indeed bought some of those games later on, but mostly in the form of sequels.

Nowadays, Steam exists. I do not need to pirate games anymore. I can literally buy any PC game I want to for less effort than it is to type in the URL to pirate bay. This is how the world should work. We are living in a better world now, and I wish the industry had got that memo upfront when Steam was released almost fifteen years ago.

I did at some point strongly consider pirating an ubisoft game. To escape havign to deal with UPLAY. Not as an alternative to purchase, but as a post-purchase step. In the end I ended up neither buying nor pirating it.

[Cæli]

if I like the game, yes, I want to play a game before buying it to know if it's money well spent

[Archon14]

I still pirate games sometimes, but for specific reasons.

I pirate new games when I'm considering buying them and there's no demo or open beta or something that will let me try it before I spend money. Back in the day we couldn't really afford all the games we played and we never went to the cinema, so in most cases, pirating was the only option. Now when I'm in a better economic situation, I always check out stuff on steam first. And I go to the cinema as often as possible.

The things I also still pirate are games that I plan on using mods on. I own Mass Effect games, but I installed a pirate version of ME3 to try out all the mods. I didn't want to fuck up the game I owned by accident or something.

Right now, I'm playing around with Galactic Civilization 3, while waiting for a good steam sale so I can buy it.

[Super Kami Dende]

when I was young and Disc Game burning seemed a normal thing, I still bought the games I enjoyed. Games I didn't enjoy I didn't buy.

[Yunru]

I pirate everything and i dont buy games on realise day any more.
Reason i do this is to test them like a demo (suprise, hardly exists any more) and if i like them i will buy them (usualy some special box on amazon). I hate digital.
If game is bad, this means i usualy stop playing it anyway and delete it. I simply refuse to give money to any1 without some demos, because i got burned way to many times.

Bad games are simply not worth the money and should not be supported. (at least when it comes to Ea games, activistion and so on)

My last purchase was Dig 2 and i knew they can be trusted with quality. But i will totaly wait for pirate patch for shadows of lootboxes, that lets you unlock everything without supporting shady practice.

While platform like Steam does allow you to get money back for a bad product, the other way to obtain the games are not consumer friendly.

Video games usualy are not protected due to being digital content and you cant just ask for money back, like you would do with a normal product, like lets say a Toaster.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens...s/index_en.htm

[Devilyaki]

I haven't pirated any games :/. Less watching let's play of them count. Usually wait a bit before buying any game then get it cheaper.

[Blueobelisk]

I've never pirated a video game. Honestly, I wouldn't even take the risk of installing a legitimate piece of software on my new PC, let alone pirated software.

Not sure if I'd buy a game I pirated. I'd think not unless there were features I was missing.

[Eleccybubb]

Well no since I never pirated a video game.

[Aeula]

I don't pirate them. If I buy a shit game I get a refund.

Not that I'm against pirating, but I just don't need to do it when it comes to games (Unless said game is no longer available for example).

[Daedius]

I haven't pirated a game since the early 2000s... less reason to nowadays with the likes of Steam and GoG where you can get games quite cheap now, especially during their sales... bonus when you get a heads up for games you want in your Wishlist!