PIRACY! Here Be Controversy.

At the risk of being taken away by men in black helicopters, I will admit this:
I have pirated games. Recently too. I downloaded torrents and played them, and I liked it.

It was so easy too. In the amount of time, and for none of the cost that it would have taken me to drive to town, purchase a game, and drive back, I had a fully working copy of a AAA title with none of the DRM headache that the legit copy comes with. With it being this easy, it's no wonder piracy is so rampant on the PC.

Why did I do it? I'm married. I have a son. My cash flow gets diverted towards more important things, like food, baby formula, and gas. This leaves very little for games. What money I do spend on games is usually spent on the bargain bin. The 10$ PS2 games at Gamestop, for example. You can really find some gems in there.

Back when I was a carefree bachelor, I took the majority of each paycheck and went on a game spending spree. I would go home with a stack of PC games every two weeks. I bought games faster than I could play them, and I liked it. There was just too much good stuff coming out that I couldn't let slip past me.

Well, an awful lot of games slip past me these days. I still haven't played Bioshock. I don't have Unreal III. These are important games, and I haven't yet touched them.

What it boils down to is money. If I had more money, I would pirate games less, and purchase games more. I've even been known to purchase a game that I pirated because I liked it. No, I'm not the type who calls pirated games "Free Demos." But sometimes I play them as such, yes.

So yes, I've pirated games. But game piracy is no substitution for actually purchasing a game. I buy as many games as I can afford, but when that gap cannot be filled, piracy is an easy way to do so.

How can we combat piracy? Easy, don't. Remove the DRM devices from the games, they do more harm than good. A simple CD key implementation is sufficient. The pirates will get around even the most robust DRM in a matter of a few days anyway, so what's the point.

What we need to do is look at the economy. When people are making money, then they can afford games, and they WILL buy them. I believe that people do want to purchase games, but sometimes the situation makes it impossible to do so.