point fingers all you like... I dare you to find a game developer that doesnt have a pirated version of software they use to make game assets at home... triple dare you. its a cycle. people pirate software, use it to make games. Then people pirate that game.
You're really going to compare using a professional tool that costs thousands of dollars for the purpose of learning to pirating a $20-$50 game for recreation? I've never worked anywhere that had pirated copies of Photoshop, 3DS, etc.
That's a trick dare. My commercial version of XSI is legally bought. So is Photoshop. Those tools are what my portfolio is made of. I've used them to create games. I do not pirate games. All of my games are paid for, demos of which I hope to buy soon (even better when the price drops), or free. Demos are often all you need…
I once saw one of my class mates log into steam and every game in the shop was open for him to download and he hadnt bought any. its insane, I dont know how it works but he only downloaded a few games before steam screwed up, so I suppose steam is reasonably safe but when it is unsafe its the most powerful pirating tool…
ebagg: Steam doesn't prevent piracy at all... It is definitely an awesome distribution system, but not so much for anti-piracy. Every game on steam is available for pirating on the web.
Digging up this two week old thread to post this interesting read: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/pirate-station Most of it is "well duh", but it's an interesting take on the subject. Thoughts?
The only time I pirate games is when I'm hard up for cash and just can't afford them. Whenever that situation changes, the games I liked, I bought, the games I didn't, went straight into the recycle bin.
I don't pirate games at all. I just play the demos on the xbox 360. Thats always enough for to judge if I want to buy a game. I prefer to buy the full version so I have the proper cd and box for some reason