Quote Originally Posted by Alric View Post
Of course no one downloads 99% of all the games out there, that isn't what I meant. I meant any one is pirating a lot of games, obviously cares a lot about games. If you buy two games, and you only buy 5% of the games you try, that means you have played 40 games. Any one who has played 40 games, was obviously going to buy a lot of games no matter what happened. So the idea that a person could go from playing 40 games, to quitting gaming all together because they refuse to pay money, is silly. They might not want to pay(which is why they steal it), but they probably would have. If they didn't steal it, and since they stole it they wont by anything.

So how many games have you downloaded and played, then decided to buy after wards? Not counting any games where you got extra content because you payed for it.
If you don't count added content, then it is a bit silly. BUT, what it is more likely to do is to familiarize yourself with a type of game or series of games that you wouldn't have previously considered. So, after playing the original Mario Galaxy game and liking it, I went out and bought the second Mario Galaxy game, because I was familiar with the series and knew that the original was fun. When I said 5%, I was assuming games, music, movies, etc. and in instances where I have been unable to find a decent quality version of an artist on the internet, I have bought songs. For less than a buck, it really is easier than hunting all over the internet trying to find one obscure track from an almost unknown artist.

Now in the games aspect, I can safely say that without TPB, I would have never looked twice at games like Prototype. Piracy has expanded my interests. So, in the future when I have a bit more disposable income and I actually have something to lose by getting sued, I will go out and buy the damn games, many more of which now have a far greater appeal than they used to.

Quote Originally Posted by Xei View Post
You don't have the Half-Life games? :0
Shocking, isn't it?

btw, why do you need to download an entire game to decide if it's good enough to buy? Surely using metacritic and possibly a demo is enough to make a sound judgement?

It's kind of like if some guy were selling a single apple and you told him you wanted to try one before you decided to buy any more.
Critics are a good source, but not the authoritative word on everything. Perhaps a better reason for piracy is that unless games were lower priced, you wouldn't buy a certain game. Perhaps it looks good, just not 50 dollars good. Playing the game is the only real way to find out if you'll like it or not. If you decide you do like it, then you'll know the critics aren't full of crap and that you'll probably enjoy similar games. Perhaps a better comparison would be a guy with an ice cream shop. He has dozens of different flavors, and you ask to sample each one. Some you like, some you don't, but you'll likely buy more a bit later when you aren't full of ice cream samples than just sticking with safe old mint chocolate chip.