Never said it excuses it. But if I didn't spend it on games, it'd just get spent on something else equally of value.

Precisely. And if the game developers/publishers are having trouble turning a profit, apparently they aren't meeting that goal.

Of course. But they admit such a thing doesn't and will likely never exist, so that is a moot point.

Because they heard about it and want to see it. Just because they want to see it doesn't mean they want to, or even can, buy it.

First, they don't have to pay. Most people can get it easy enough by going to a website and doing a search. They choose to pay, and that's what companies need to focus on; making it so more people choose to pay than not.

Second, this isn't about right or wrong. It's about keeping PC games sales up so that it remains a lucrative market. I bet most businesses wouldn't care if everyone in the world pirated their games, as long as the money kept flowing in.

Because you think it's worth it? You want to reward the creators for their work so they can continue making things?

Maybe if PC gamers didn't feel cheated at almost every PC game purchase..
When was the last time you could try a reasonable demo of a game before buying it? When was the last time you didn't have to worry about if you could return a game you didn't like? When was the last time you didn't have to worry about the DRM it comes with messing up your system or preventing you from even playing the game?
These companies want you to blindly buy their products, with no recourse to get your money back if you don't like it. They want you to buy only from them, no second-hand sales which is supposed to be gauranteed by law. You think that's fair?

That's oversimplified in the case of corporations. If a CEO does the "right thing", the shareholders sell their stock (bad for the company) if they can get a bigger immediate profit in some other company. They can also vote him out.

Windows is a whole different ball-game. It's almost a monopoly market, and for such a thing, different rules apply.
Also, if there were a law stating mandating that the OS be sold separately from any hardware, and that anyone selling OSes must offer at least two alternatives from different companies, a lot more people might consider a cheaper OS. As it is now, Windows looks as if it were "free", because "it comes with the computer". People are using Vista now because that's what's on a new computer; this forces software makers to focus on Vista rather than XP, and this in turn leads to people switching to Vista eventually, when the latest version of their software doesn't support XP anymore. I hardly know anyone who actually bought a Vista upgrade because Vista by itself is so much better.

That's because the production cost of a CD is something like 1% of the total price. Even if the production cost were zero, you wouldn't feel the difference.

A lot of shareware games are easy and reasonably secure to buy online.

But the one thing that keeps striking me every time this discussion comes up is this: Copyright infringement is illegal, and the fact that it is, is the result of a more or less democratic process. Few people would agree to get rid of it entirely, and most of us think that creative work deserves pay. Yet I hear all sorts of arguments FOR file sharing, unauthorized copying, pirating, whatever you want to call it, and why it "should" be legal.
Whether or not CI hurts sales, whether or not CI causes any economical damage at all, whether or not DRM is inconvenient or not, it completely irrelevant. Copying software without the copyright holder's permission is illegal, DRM (if done right) is not, at least not by itself.

You're absolutely right, but I think that if the DRM part is relatively painless, and there is toll-free quality customer support, the problems are manageable.

I'm willing to give companies the benefit of the doubt when it comes to most DRM schemes, but the moment I have even a smidgen of trouble with it... they've lost my business forever.

I was googling for the additional cost of preinstalled Windows, I couldn't find a link, but did find this (which is partly concerned with piracy)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/04/30/preinstalled_windows_aargh_i_cant/

Ummm, I've been playing reasonable demos of a lot of games on PS3. As for PC, there probably aren't a lot of demos (or games, for that matter) released because piracy is shifting the focus of developers to consoles (for the record, about the only PC games I buy are through Steam. In particular, games developed by VALVe and Rockstar Games; I mostly only play shooters on PC and the rest I enjoy on PlayStation consoles). There are new PS3 demos released every couple of weeks. My PS3 is so full of demos I haven't even played half of them. It's like you're poisoning your own well and crying for government assistance when you have no clean water to drink.

Nobody said you were entitled to play every game ever made. You pick and choose based on previews, reviews, demos, screenshots, gameplay video on YouTube and similar sites, etc. There is PLENTY of information out there for you to make an informed decision about a game. And as with any purchase, there is some risk involved. There always will be. So if you aren't sure if you're willing to risk the money then go without.

The corporations are providing entertainment. It is not required to survive. It's a luxury. You are not entitled to it. And entertainers are free to charge whatever they want (which is again whatever the most consumers are willing to pay). Being unwilling to pay is no excuse to steal or infringe. If it were, stealing would be perfectly acceptable. And it's not.

If you read the OP's article they talk about musicians that sign the rights of their works over to recording companies. They do it because they choose to do it. And it's their work so they're free to do with it what they want. The reason they do it is because the recording company can expose a lot more people to the work than the artist could on his own. So even though the recording company takes a large piece of the pie and owns the rights to the works, the artist still makes a lot more than they would have without the recording company. Why do you think artists continue to sign with recording companies? So yes, when you buy your favorite band's CD you are putting money in the pockets of business people as well as musicians. But it's because of those business people that you even knew your favorite band existed. Thank them for it.

The games industry is probably quite similar. It is expensive to develop, publish, and market a game and there is a lot of risk involved. Why do you think successful independent game developers are so rare (if they even exist...)? It's not because anybody in particular is standing in their way. It's that the market is very competitive and it requires a large investment and a lot of risk to compete. And independent developers can't afford it. Very much like independent music artists can't compete with the signed artists. They need help to get their works exposed to the masses. And unsurprisingly, that help comes with strings attached. Welcome to the wonderful world of business where smart players benefit and suckers lose.

Consumers win from all of this too because with the help of major corporations more people are exposed to the works than otherwise could be and projects that wouldn't have been possible are made possible. My favorite games, movies, TV shows, music, and "books" (if there were one ) are all made possible by these "evil" corporations you speak of. Without them, I would probably never have been exposed to any of that stuff. Much of it wouldn't have even been feasible to create.

Pirates hurt legitimate consumers more than anyone else because they're taking money from our pockets. Do you honestly think the businesses involved are going to take the hit and continue to do business? They're either going to pass the hit onto consumers or stop doing that business all together and find another way to make money. So stop pretending to be righteous people fighting for the little guy. You're just selfish freeloaders on the backs of the people you claim to be fighting for.

I think we have here an example of the issue of access.

Would you buy these games in the same price if you couldn't buy them online but instead you had to go to the shop to buy them?

I agree mostly with axilmar. The reasons people give to pirate a game are just excuses; they pirate because it's easy, free, and they won't get caught. So keep blowing your hot air. However, I think most people will draw a line if they feel the developer needs their money to survive.

[And no, I don't count buying a game and then using a 'pirated' copy of it as pirating.]

And as I've said many times, piracy hurts the little guy more than it does the big guy. Sure, Microsoft may lose tons of money (not relative to their total sales) due to piracy, but it prevents other operating systems from gaining a user base. If every illegal copy of Windows were magically replaced with a copy of Linux, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux would have a majority desktop share worldwide.

I'll pay for a game if I think the game is worth the money. I bought Mount&Blade because I liked the game and it wasn't too expensive. I could have very easily pirated it, but I didn't.

If I'm not sure if it's worth the money, then maybe I'll pirate it, play it for 2 seconds and then never touch it again. Mount&Blade has a demo, so there was never any reason to pirate it.

But were all those things really made possible by these "evil" corporations? (I'm assuming you put evil in quotes because you don't actually think they are.) Are these "evil" corporations really necessary? I don't think they should be (they might be necessary, but from what I've been able to come up with so far, they aren't.) Of course, I'm ready for someone to come and prove me wrong.

In the beginning, there was on-disk copy protection, with its various sectors manipulated and tossed about, and everything was fine. Some copies were made, but a bought disk always played in a drive for the system it was made for. For those times when this burden was troublesome, we had archiving programs with parameters. Everything was fine.

Then, more esoteric devices started to rear their heads. Instruction booklets with codes printed in shiny black ink on flat black paper (so as to thwart photocopying) began to appear. We kept our manuals in a desk drawer and played our games as we pleased. Life was good.

Then, manual word checks appeared. We were bidden to look into the tome of ancient secrets (again, a manual) and whisper a word to ye olde gods, usually in the form of "The first word of the third sentence in the second paragraph of page 42." Again, we kept our manuals in a desk drawer, and produced them when it was time to play. This was a minor inconvenience, but it did what it could to stem the tide of piracy, and we understood that. In the instance that this burden was too much to bear, we called upon the almighty NOP, and the problem went away.

Then, code wheels started to crop up. We turned a wheel upon another wheel, which was possibly upon yet another wheel. When the sacred windows lined up in a manner specified by the program, arcane knowledge was provided that allowed the game to run. We blessed the great software gods of California for their bounty, and kept our code wheels in the same drawer that held whatever manuals we still needed. Life was good. Again, in the unlikely instance that this burden was too much to bear, we called upon the almighty NOP.

Many years passed, and gaming evolved from a disk based distribution system to a disc and network distribution system.

Manual codes reappeared, but now they were in alphanumeric gibberish that needed to be typed in once to allow for installation and/or network access. This was largely not a problem, unless you found yourself on the receiving end of a stolen, inaccurate, or otherwise expired code. Code generators were created by the elder gods to allow for copying, but collateral damage existed in that legit codes may be deactivated through illicit use, while the box remains on the shelf, waiting to be purchased. We shook our heads and continued to support PC gaming.

Disc-based copy protection became in vogue once more, and our games started coming with disclaimers (inside the box, no less) that the copy protection might conflict with certain brands of CD-ROMS. This was largely not a problem, unless you found yourself on the receiving end of such horrible affliction, wherein you were placed in the unfortunate position of having a game you could neither return nor play. Those among the damned called upon the elder gods, and they responded with cracks and miniature disc images stripped of the offending protection. We shook our heads once more and continued to support PC gaming.

Rootkit inspired copy protection came upon us like a plague of locusts to the fertile fields, and we began to find our systems and registries cluttered with flotsam and system level drivers that leeched precious CPU cycles and wreaked havoc on overall system stability. The industry's new malediction was again easily foiled by cracks and miniature disc images. We began to arch our eyebrows... collectively, and one at a time. This was turning into an unacceptable experience.

Then, the joy known as internet activation descended from the heavens, yet though it bore wings of purest white, in its heart a ball of malodorous pitch throbbed incessantly. This was usually not a problem, unless you bought a game on launch day and found it locked because the activation servers were swamped, or you decided to sell your game to someone else, or your internet access was interrupted when you wanted to play the game... or the company hosting the DRM activation went belly up. As with every copy protection scheme that had come before it, this one ran afoul of the elder gods, who visited their wrath in the form of activated game rips, spoof server apps, and the familiar executable patch. The situation was becoming too much to bear, having played along with the publishers' copy protection schemes for so many years, and accepting a measure of inconvenience in return for the ability to play the games we surrendered our monetary funds to receive. To purchase a game and go to play it, only to find yourself at the mercy of some other entity whose only concern is revenue, is a slippery slope that I don't care to explore.

I no longer support PC gaming. Give me a manual, or fully compatible disc check without resorting to what is essentially a root kit, and I will return to the fold. Until then, I enjoy console gaming. The elder gods would like to remind you at this time that eventually publishers will totally fuck that up as well, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Piracy is wrong, but even more wrong is punishing honest users for it. As long as the DRM works well enough and is non-intrusive (as is the case with Mount & Blade for example, for as far as I can tell), I don't see a problem with it, but when it deprives legit users from rightfully using the software as advertised, I do.
Fortunately, I live in a country that has a law that basically states that:
1. it is illegal to sell goods that do not fulfill any purpose at all;
2. it is illegal to sell goods that do not fulfill the advertised purpose;
3. any purchase can be undone during 3 full working days from the date of purchase, provided the product is intact
Point 1 basically means that the popular "no fitness for any purpose guaranteed" EULA restriction is void here.
Point 2 has the consequence that if a game you purchase doesn't run on a system that fulfills the advertised minimum specs, you are entitled to a full refund, package opened or not.