BWX

I buy most PC games I have ever played. I enjoy supporting the PC gaming industry, especially when the games are well made and deserving of every bit of profit they get.

Sometimes I download games I would never buy in a million years because of the quality of game development, final product (or lack-thereof), a genre I am uninterested in, etc... just to check them out. I haven't in a long time though; nothing seems worth the time to even do that. I either buy it, or don't play it.

IMO downloading software is not "stealing" if you were never going to buy it in the first place. Some people refuse to concede this point, but it doesn't matter, that's the way it is.

There is no way to compare software to a car, pack of cigarettes, food, or any other tangible physical object unless that object can be copied for free infinitely until the end of time. Think about it, it's not like if you download a hack-job copy of a game that there are any fewer legit copies on the shelves to sell to legitimate customers. There is no relationship to the two. Plus, if you download software, you do not get the physical object you get when you buy it- You also take risks by installing some hack-job software(possible virus infected, etc), you do not get the LEGAL rights to use it, nor do you get the physical package --- the actual THING you buy when you buy the retail game. You take risks downloading, and you CAN get caught.. People DO get caught and prosecuted all the time. The chances are low of course, but they are real.

I also tip at least 20% of the bill every time I go out to eat or get food delivered.. it is the honor system, just like if "real life". People can probably get away with a lot of theft in the real world if they wanted to, some people do- most do not even think about it. Why does every company have loss-prevention? Why do people who actually pay their medical bills pay higher costs because of dead beats that never pay? It's because the service or physical object they are buying has value and is in limited supply, one way or the other, not like a bunch of copied series of "1's and 0's" floating around on the internet that has no value in and of itself, other than the electricity needed to send them from one place to another.

Downloading software that you would never buy anyway is not a black and white issue, anyone who thinks that way obviously is not thinking things through all the way and are just as polarizing as the people who try to rationalize downloading every single piece of software they ever use without paying for any of it, just because they can.

The worst people are the ones who make physical copies of games and software and sell them on street corners, virtual or otherwise.. They are the ones that are hurting the game devs, the software devs, and they are usually in countries other than the US or other developed countries where the profits would be going. China anyone? Hell, they copy actual physical products and try to pass them off as real.. Hasn’t anyone ever watched a documentary or news program or read an article on the rampant fraud going on in that country alone?

No, the problem is not some guy downloading a game he would have never bought in the first place; it is organized fraud and counterfeiting going on in mass factories all over the world for profit. Think people. Think. It's obvious who the real bad guys are. It isn't the people spending their hard earned money on overly priced PC hardware and sometimes sampling a crappy game downloaded form the internet he never would have bought anyway.

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