Do you buy games after pirating them?

[fangless]

Not in the slightest.

[Pull My Finger]

Not everyone can afford $50 games several times a month, and not everyone has a big enough asshole to get fucked by every game developer who sells 10% of a game for retail price and releases the rest of the game as paid DLCs.

In other words, you're describing an asshole.

So what? You're not entitled to things. Get a job, princess.

[melodramocracy]

Is this one of those threads where pirates pinky swear that they buy not only the game, but all the swag available after grabbing a copy?

[Charge me Doctor]

More often yes. If i enjoyed the game - sure. Even if i don't plan to play it anymore (like in case of Vampire bloodlines the masquerade, since it was literally impossible to buy licensed game i played a pirated version and when steam bloomed and this game was released i bought it). I don't buy (and don't continue playing them) pirated game if i didn't enjoyed them in first couple of hours.

I wouldn't buy stuff like pillars of eternity or wasteland 2 if i wouldn't play it first

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In other words, you're describing an asshole.

So what? You're not entitled to things. Get a job, princess.

I prefer not buying these game to make a stance that i'm not fine with their DLC/season pass bullshit. There are plenty of games to entertain me, shadows of lootboxes won't be missed, just like call of duty/battlefield/mass effect/sims stuff

[druenos]

I don't pirate games but video I do every day, but thats more to do with watching them as soon as the are aired in America. I end up buying it if I enjoyed it I buy it because I want it for my collection. I probably buy much more because of it.

[Deleted]

I don't pirate anything anymore.

This. Pirating has gone out of style years ago.

[endersblade]

I haven't pirated a game in a very long time. Thanks to the advent of Youtube, I can just watch videos of people playing the game to get a feel of whether or not I'll like it. But back when I DID pirate them, the only time I would actually buy the game is after it went on a ridiculous sale - usually 70% or more off. Even when I had the disposable income I HATED paying full price for a game.

Sort of off topic, but as far as movies and such go, yes. I usually try to go see movies in theater, but sometimes the paycheck just won't allow it. So I'll wait until a decent copy can be downloaded, watch it, and if I like it, I will definitely buy it. Unfortunately I seem to have a knack for wanting to see movies that turn out to be absolutely terrible, and I haven't purchased one in a long time. As far as TV series go, fuck no I would never pay for that. Why do I want to have huge collections of discs of TV series? I don't have room for that. If cable companies would allow us to pick and choose which channels we buy, then I would buy the channels that show the shows I want to watch and all would be well. Since that is not the case, if it doesn't end up on Amazon Prime, Hulu or Netflix, I pirate it, watch it, and delete it.

[Charge me Doctor]

This. Pirating has gone out of style years ago.

You do realize that it was never about style, but about convenience? Steam did better job at stopping people from downloading cracked games than any major company with their invasive "anti-piracy" software that more often breaks your PC than stops people from cracking their game. Some companies don't want to realize that their games don't cost as much as they think they do, and when they think "hey, people are likely to go to some dodgy website and download cracked version without any support than buy game in proper way for 60$+", their conclusion isn't "well we probably should provide better service, drop our price to appropriate level, stop cutting the game before release, stop this season pass and day one content DLC/patches scam", but "DAMN PIRATZES U MAKES OUR WHALES GO AWAY" or something.

I recently read interview of dev defending lootboxes in a single player game, like, seriously, what the fuck is going on? I mean, simply because i am i, i won't be playing it at all, but me ~6 years ago probably would download it and /laugh at dev while still enjoying the game.

[Drusin]

If I was on the fence about a game and didn't know if I wanted it even after watching videos and reading about it I would buy it after trying it. Demo discs were a great help back in the day and if not for them I wouldn't have known about certain games or bought them.

[zealo]

Just be glad they stopped doing DRM in the fashion of Starforce. Bloody rootkits those ones. Complaints about denuvo as invasive is practically nothing compared to that.

[kubuntu]

I download most of games from torrents, if i like a game i buy a original after, but the thing is that like 80% of games i download is hardly worth its price i usulay i stop playing it after few hours. But if ther is game i enjoio then y shure i offten buy original after like i did with all Blizz games , gothic series or tWitcher

[Otimus]

I don't even pirate games anymore. Not out of a moral reason, but just because it's easier to just pay for shit. Who'd of thunk that making obtaining games easier than pirating them would work! Huh! Back when I did, though, I'd probably only buy half of them. Mostly because I just downloaded everything. Regardless of quality. So it was just amassing stuff. To that end, too, it also sort of started ruining games for me. I'd rarely ever actually finish anything, and it was more about just amassing content.

[Tackhisis]

It has always been filesharing.

You cannot share what you don't own, so it is a clear piracy.

[Charge me Doctor]

You cannot share what you don't own, so it is a clear piracy.

No, you can share what you don't own, like you can share an apartment you rent

[pateuvasiliu]

I bought Divinity Original Sin 2 after playing it for free for a few days. No performance issues. Now, on Steam, it runs like shit.

So I'm a bit conflicted with my choice.

[Rotted]

I have on two occasions pirated games,

1) Last year - Star Trek Armada 2. This game came out in 2001 they haven't sold it since and to get a hard copy off ebay you're looking at 50GBP upwards usually

2) Going back to when I was 12 or so, I had a copy of sim city 2000 on my parents computer for a while as they couldn't afford to get me my own. One day I got home and to my surprise this bad arse computer was waiting for me, their friend who is fairly well off bought a new one and decided to ask if I wanted it before scrapping. Now this computer had TWO disc drives in and neoburner. Now I didn't think anything of it at the time but when I opened this burner the first thing it said was "Please don't use this software to make copies of software or games". Needless to say the idea was implemented in my head and I copied simcity 2000 and it worked. I proceeded to make about 10 copies and I walked home from school the next day with 50 quid in my pocket.

My dad laughed, then bollocked me (we have close family in trading standards) and my mother took the money off me and put it in my savings account.

Number 1 I don't see any harm in pirating, if Activison offered it in their store I'd buy it in a heart beat. But they only ever had hard copies and never digitilised it.

I also have a friend whose parents bought him a PS1 when it first came out. After he got it, his father was talking in work (Ford) to a friend of his and his friend said to bring it to him and he'll chip it for him. His dad didn't have a clue what that meant and he took it in. Few days later my friend gets his PS1 back with 50 odd games. Back then you used to 'chip' a console which let it play copied games. Every single time my mate came up he'd bring every single game with him. The very last time I'm pretty sure he had every single ps1 title. No joke the piles used to 30 upwards high of boxes and we used to have them stacked all over the lounge. Even then I knew that was pretty wrong to do


Honestly, I don't think you should pirate games at all, if you're getting hours of usage out of it and enjoyment you should be paying. It's not like paying to go see a film then pirating it.

[alucardtnuoc]

Honestly, I don't think you should pirate games at all, if you're getting hours of usage out of it and enjoyment you should be paying. It's not like paying to go see a film then pirating it.

I'm fine with people who decide to pirate a game to try it out and it leads them to buying it afterwards. I'm of the mindset that games should have more robust demos for consumers to actually try the game out as reviews or watching others can only do so much. Sometimes you need to experience the game to know if you'll enjoy it. .

[pateuvasiliu]

Yes, very often, most of the games I own were pirated first.

State of Decay, Skyrim, Stardew Valley, Divinity Original Sin 1&2, Dark Souls 3 are a few examples currently installed in my Steam account. Now, do take in mind that personal use of pirated content isn’t punishable by law in my country (sort of like our drug policy), therefore piracy (unlike drug usage) is rather pretty common thing around here…

Pretty sure even the cops and president use pirated Windows in Romania at home

[prwraith]

Pretty sure even the cops and president use pirated Windows in Romania at home

I don't know anyone who actually pays for windows tbh

[Confucius]

I used to pirate games because I was poor and living in a country with limited access when it came to getting games legit. Looking at my steam library, I have basically bought all the games that I used to pirate which are available on steam right now. There are some really old games I can't buy any more but totally would. I'm making amends, one can say.
The thing is, I miss the days of demos. No demos make me spoil games for me in advance since I need to watch streams first to determine whether the game is worth buying. Last game I bought that had a demo was Shadow Tactics: Blades of a Shogun. After playing the demo for 10 minutes and having major Commandos flashbacks, I had no reservations dropping 40 bucks for it. That was a game done right.