Myself, my brother, and my sister, may never have gotten into gaming on the level we do had it not been for pirating games when we were younger. There was no way my parents or myself were ever going to be able to afford the amount of games we played, and we played a lot of diverse and interesting games (and often got some stinkers as well, but no harm since they cost nothing). I absolutely attribute my love of games today for my piracy of games in the past.
That said, I always swore to myself that when I could afford my own games I would start paying for them, because I absolutely realised that my piracy of games I loved (forget the ones I hated) was depriving someone of the income associated with that gameplay. So that's exactly what I've done. I haven't pirated a game in probably 10-15 years, have rebought a lot of the old games that I *did* pirate back then on GoG and/or Steam when I came across them, and spend a lot of money on gaming hardware to play what's out there. My brother is in the industry having found a love for games which I would almost directly associate with the number of games that were pirated driving that love.
Business-wise, piracy is a difficult subject. Publishers and some developers see it as a completely black and white issue, that piracy is an evil that must be stopped (although those same publishers are trying to get you to also buy all their products, good or bad - with no concern for affordability). I fully agree that from a business perspective, you want every person to be paying for their gameplay, but in reality there are tons of people out there who may benefit from piracy now, but may ultimately contribute into the gaming community in the future far more than they ever took out.
Sign up with Google
