I actually have a personal experience with piracy.

Me and my little bro made a casual game a few years back, nothing huge but it was just the 2 of us so it took a a while to make, anyway a few months later I found it up as a free download on some Arab website, and you know what I couldn't give a damn, at least people still brought the game from the casual game website and the people pirating it where probably never going to buy the game in the 1st place.

You are the reason big name publishers don't make big budget exclusive games that fully take advantage of the PC. PC gaming gets 2-3 AAA games a year exclusive to your system. Yeah I know mods, Keep living off old games. A lot of us gamers want new ip's. Indie games MMOs, and casual games are what keeps PC gaming afloat. If I was PC gamer I would be mad to see console gamers get so many big budget games. Argue all you want other than indie developers who developes exclusively for PC. Times are changing and more and more PC developers are jumping ship for consoles because it's were the money is other than MMOs. Justify it any way you want, you are the problem. The whole hurt big companies is stupid and without logic.

Edited for grammar.

Here is a little thought experiment:

Has there ever been a PC game that hasn't been pirated? You know freely available on any of the torrent networks?

The answer is NO, ANY game can be found there. So whatever DRM put in place isn't preventing piracy!

However, is DRM hurting legitimate owners from playing their game? Especially compared to the pirates?

It's easy to see then that the incentive to become a pirate is pretty big. No payment and no hassle!

That said, I grew up on piracy. That was the norm, but as I grew up and had an income, game purchases of known franchises is something I do now i.e. I was a pirate, but now a paying customer. On the flip side, one only has to look at MS past strategy:

"Microsoft doesn't want you to pirate their software, but if you must choose between illegally installing Windows or a competitor's operating system, Microsoft would prefer that you choose them. While the company obviously won't endorse the illegal use of software, it does believe that piracy can result in profit."

http://arstechnica.com/micr...

Key here is NOT to think of it as "how to prevent", but rather how to "create a consumer out of the pirate"!

As long as most of us still go out and buy the games instead of pirating then there's nothing to worry about, piracy has been going on for years and its never affected the industry that much, so I doubt we need to worry at all just yet.

agreed.. i think the current pricing of games doesnt help most if not all are grossly overpriced

I find the "trying the game before buying" excuse the same as when pirates say "it is used for homebrew only".Im not denying that there are actually people who only do it for those sole reasons,but the thing is that the MAJORITY of people aren't,but are doing it for pirating games

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Let me be clear. This is sarcasm