Serioli said:
I've heard the logic of 'wouldn't buy it anyway' a few times (not picking on you) and am intrigued about it.
If [John Smith] wouldn't buy game X anyway, why waste the time and bandwidth downloading it and however much time (minutes, hours, days or more) playing it?
Anyone?
Quick answer: Potential gain versus potential loss.
Longer Answer: There's a big difference in cost to the consumer between $110 for a brand new game, and the time required to do one quick search on a torrent site, wait a day for it to download, and then unzip the files. And yes, it is a quick unzipping most times. For PC, I haven't had to use a difficult crack in years. Unless you're after a new DRM heavy title, it's not "a lot of work" like people make it out to be. I've had more difficulties with legitimately owned games not playing on my system correctly and having to find work arounds and patches for those than I have with finding cracks for pirated games.
I'm not going to waste a ridiculously-overpriced-portion of my limited income on a game unless I know I'm going to enjoy it. I've been burnt far too often by shoddy products - dodgy sequels to good games, reviewers spouting praise because they're being paid for their score, games with great intention destroyed by poor design, or games I didn't even get to play at all because they wouldn't run on my system for some unknown reason. If the game is "free" so to speak, I can try it for an hour with very little risk to myself. If I hate it, I've wasted at most a few Gb of my monthly download and about an hour and a half of my time. That's a loss I can bear. I can try all those "classics" that I keep hearing about without worrying that nostalgia is the only reason people are recommending them. I can check out obscure cult favourites, eastern european indie games, that one PC game from the early 90's that sticks into my friend's head as "the best game ever." Whatever I hear about, I can give it a quick try. If it's rubbish, I delete it. If it's great, I play it through, and usually I end up buying a legal copy, I buy sequels, I buy games by the same developer.
Occasionally you can get a good demo that'll serve the same purpose. Try the game for a few levels ripped directly from the actual game, or for a few hours to play from the start. But often it's a piece of crap unrelated to the game (see the Res Evil 5 demo) or there isn't a demo at all. A cheaper game can do just as well too - if I see a title I've heard about for $20 or less on Steam, I usually give it a go. I'm willing to lose that much on the chance a game is good. $80 on the other hand...
There's also the fact that after initial publication, it's extremely hard to find most games unless they were popular enough for a large production. If you can find a legit copy, it's heavily marked up due to demand, or it's a second hand item. Buying a game second hand gives no benefit to the creator of the game, they see none of the money. What good is paying $50 for a 5 year old game so some guy gets all the profit?
Personally, I like the view of a developer/musician I read[lost the article
]. "Pirate my games/music, and buy a t-shirt from my website instead."