Correct, no one is forcing me to buy the game, which is why I choose to pirate it instead.
I see this statement alot, at least twice in this thread so far and I only did a quick skim of it, I think I even skipped an entire page.
It doesn't make any sense, and it makes the anti-pirate argument looks stupid. Here, I'll help your side out a little bit here.
I think the word you are looking for is "play" not "buy". No one is forcing me to
play the game. See doesn't that make more sense? If you use "buy", obviously I'm not buying the game, I'm pirating it, so it makes no sense to say no one is forcing me to do something I'm not doing.
Now, lets assume you said "No one is forcing you to play the game." A far better argument indeed. You are right, no one is forcing me to play the game. So, if the game sucks, I don't play it. Yes, I downloaded it illegally. But if I download it illegally, play it for an hour and realize it sucks, uninstall it, and delete the downloaded content, is it still piracy?
Yes, to the game publishers and developers it certainly is! Why? Becuase they didn't make any money off me. See if I didn't pirate the game, I would have had to actually buy it to try it. Then when I find out it sucks, and I just wasted my $60, I can't even take the game back because the Publishes have implemented stupid rules about returning open software, or rather they flat out said you can't.
I remember before that policy, returning several games within the 14 day period for the simple reason that they sucked. That used to be acceptable, the store would take the game back, and you would get your money back. And guess what, Publishers actually had to put out games that didn't suck. Not anymore though, the publishers won't take games back from the stores if they've been openned, so now the consumer is stuck with shit games that they've wasted their money on. I feel sorry for kids today, I actually really do. I remember saving and saving, mowing lawns and doing chores for people around the neighborhood when I was 12, so I could go to Software Etc.(yes, I'm dating myself here.) and buy a game. I also remember getting home and finding out that game sucked, packing it back up, and taking it back. You can't do that anymore.
Ok, now I know the next argument will be "well they do have demos". Yes, they do. But more often then not, the demo is an extremely small section of the game, usually the best part of the game, that doesn't give a real idea of how the real game will be. And it seems to be even more popular then ever for Publishers and Developers to not release a demo at all. There are some really great exceptions to this. Steam free weekends, where they just let you play the game, the complete game, for an entire weekend free. That is a great idea, and I applaud Steam for implementing it. However, it is far too rare, and usually not with brand new games. Now, if game developers and publishers released demos, that were the full game, but time limitted to say 4 hours of gametime before shutting off and requiring purchase, I probably wouldn't pirate a single game. The 4 hours of play would be more than enough for me to figure out if I liked the game or not, and if I was going to buy it or not.
Oh, and on a different note. I'd like to point out that piracy is
not theft. A handy guide to explain:
http://www.gameproducer.net/images/piracyisnottheft.jpg
Anyone that says piracy if theft should be out in front of their local library with picket signs, because they freely allow people, even aid them in, taking books to the copier and photocopying pages! Hell some librarys even have litte kiosks that you you scan pages directly onto a flash drive!
Anti-pirate people like to make the argument "You wouldn't walk into a store and steal a stick of RAM, but you would steal software." No you idiots, I wouldn't walk into Target and steal a book, but I would walk into a library and make a photocopy of every page I needed, or even better scan every page of the book onto a flash drive!