Have you ever pirated a PC game?

pcgamer

pcgamer

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Piracy is a crime. We all know that. Most of the people say that they hate the rampant piracy across the consoles and PC. It's more rampant on PC than on consoles though. My question to you is, have you ever pirated a PC game? If yes, then why did you do it? Your honesty would be appreciated.
 
I did, but only to try out the game. If I found it interesting, I buy it on steam, usually on a sale. Sometimes the demos or reviews just don't satisfy me enough.
 
I think I downloaded Age of Empires 1 through a torrent as I just couldn't find a proper version of it (this was only a couple of years back). I also play ROM versions of Gameboy games if that counts? Other than that, I've never pirated a game. After I got a job and my own money it's not really worth the hassle with cracking etc., it's much easier to just buy it straight up and never have any issues.

Pirating is illegal, but for some reason I don't really care that much that people do it despite realizing that it's basically theft of intellectual property. Maybe I've just got a twisted moral compass?
 
I have to say I did. When I was a lot younger, I used to *buy* pirated copies of the game, because my internet speed and bandwidth were very low, and I couldn't pirate them myself. Pirating was the only way to play a game here where I live, because people don't think of gaming as important here, and it's impossible to find a legal copy of the game, anywhere in the city. Only games you could find are Counter-Strike. That was all the people here played back then, and the majority still play it. I don't pirate games that much anymore, and when I do, it's usually to test the game out and see if I like it, and if I do, get it on Steam.
 
No. I have never done this nor played on a "private server." I don't think it's a good thing to do. Some games have a free trial, which should be enough to see if you think you'd like it or not, in my opinion. I can usually tell right away if I'm going to like something or not.
 
I've pirated a lot of games myself, because this was before the Steam time and the games were pretty expensive in my country. Since I was young I couldn't afford to buy them so cassually, that's why I did it. Right now, I buy most games that I play, because I can afford them more easily and it feels a lot better to have the original ones. One thing that keeps me buying games is the Humble Bundle, where you can support the developer directly and also give some money to charity.
 
jurew2 said:
I've pirated a lot of games myself, because this was before the Steam time and the games were pretty expensive in my country. Since I was young I couldn't afford to buy them so cassually, that's why I did it. Right now, I buy most games that I play, because I can afford them more easily and it feels a lot better to have the original ones. One thing that keeps me buying games is the Humble Bundle, where you can support the developer directly and also give some money to charity.
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I ws young and not so rich when I pirated a few of the games I loved playing. I must admit that I never felt guilty doing it as I didn't even realize that I was stealing something from the developers.
 
Yes, I have, and I don't regret it. I always support the developer in ways I can, and I usually do buy the game afterwards if I found it to be enjoyable. Piracy is a problem for PC, but it has only grown the PC gaming industry, not hurt it. Most PC gamers complain about the crappy DRM that companies are putting in place instead, like Ubisoft forcing you to use UPlay, or EA forcing you to use Origin and Battlelog to launch BF3.
 
I pirated games and I still do. I don't do it to avoid paying for them, it is just I am a teen and I don't have a job yet so I can't pay for games. If I had the money I would quit pirating altogether. There are perks to buying a game because you don't have to worry about malware, you can play multiplayer, and you can get achievements.
 
I have but the game was already extremely old so I didn't see much sense in having to go through the trouble of hunting it down on ebay and waiting for the disc to arrive. I just wanted to replay a very old game I got to play as a kid and after I downloaded it I didn't even really play it for that long. I just tried it out again for a couple of hours and after seeing what I remembered of the game I turned it off and never played it again.
 
I used to pirate games before I bought them. The only purpose of this was to test them out and if I like them a lot, I had no problem in putting money into the game to support the developer. Usually I decided whether I liked a game within a few hours and checked if I had the money for it. An exception for this principle are studios that basically just rip off their customers and release unfinished games or games where it is almost required to buy downloadable content in order to enjoy them.
 
I do pirate games, though mostly to just demo them beyond what a demo would give. 1 level is not a good representation for me. after that, i just buy them on steam.
 
I do pirate games, but only to try them out. If I love it then I would go buy it on steam. Unless it is a single player game then I will play it without paying.
 
pcgamer said:
Piracy is a crime. We all know that. Most of the people say that they hate the rampant piracy across the consoles and PC. It's more rampant on PC than on consoles though. My question to you is, have you ever pirated a PC game? If yes, then why did you do it? Your honesty would be appreciated.
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I'm ashamed to say I only bought like 4 games for PC (off the top of my head: Age of Empires II, Sims 2, UEFA Euro 2004 and Counter-Strike). The rest of them I downloaded. Maybe I am damaging the industry but times are tough and money doesn't last forever.

It's pretty sad what the industry became for a while but I think the PC industry is recovering with more people using Steam and paying microtransactions.

I guess I should buy more PC games. This would mean no more viruses, no more downloading and no more complications. I think a gamer should at least buy his favourite games and that's what I intend to do when I'm richer lol :p.
 
I never have. I've always paid for a game, or in some cases just played free-to-play games. In fact my one F2P game, Aion, used to be pay-to-play and had the same pricing model as WoW.

Speaking of, I'm still paying for my WoW subscription and have been since 2008. Call me crazy but I still love the game.
 
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