I couldn't agree more. I'm sick and tired of these weak attempts at justifications by pirates. Not being able to afford something doesn't mean you get to just download it instead. Not liking the DRM doesn't give you some ridiculous legitimacy in pirating the product. It's an absolute joke, and a tiresome one at that.

Incorrect. You are depriving the publishers (and developers) potential profits (and potential royalties).
And let me change my counter-examples, since you seem to think they don't apply to you:
I paid to see "A Knight's Tale". I should go steal Iron Man.
I bought a few (actually, all of :p) the albums from Poets of the Fall. I earned the right to steal Twilight Theatre (on sale this Wednesday).
I bought Unreal Tournament. I best go steal The Witcher!
Again, acknowledge that you are a pirate, I am sure we'll all love you for that. But don't pretend that you are justified in your theft.
And just as an example: I absolutely, positively, loved Freelancer. So did a lot of others. But I think we all agree that the replay on that one isn't high (unless you play MP). So if I were to steal it, why would I buy it? I won't ever replay it.
And you argue "I buy more stuff now that I pirate things". Maybe. Or, more likely,. you got the stick out of your butt and realized that video games didn't stop being made ten years ago. Everyone screamed and moaned about Halo-shields for health (myself included), but now I love it (if done correctly). Everyone screamed and moaned that they hate achievements, but now we all view them as nice additions.
Like I said: If you can't afford a hobby, get a new one. If you don't think something will be worth buying, don't buy it. Or, better yet, do what I do. Go watch some youtube videos. Go read a few reviews from sources you like. Or just steal them. But don't pretend that your financial situation justifies stealing entertainment :p

You only need to connect for the DLC. You can play Dragon Age with NO internet connection whatsoever and never have to sign up for ANYTHING. Really. For your #1 game you seem almost determined not to buy it. :P
Regarding your piracy habits, we can still be friends, but I will occasionally glare at you. Haha.

about dang time somebody said this.....

While I also have little sympathy for the excuses people use to try to justify piracy, throwing out ridiculous equivocations really doesn't help the discussion at all. Just address the issues honestly and directly.
The issue I take with piracy is twofold. First, it often deprives creators of revenue. No, not the creators of what is being pirated; I'm willing to take you at your word that you buy games you end up liking, and games you pirate and don't buy are games you wouldn't have bought anyway. The creators it deprives of revenue are those who create entertainment that you may have been willing to buy, but never ended up looking into because you already had other entertainment to consume your time (some of it pirated). Entertainment products don't just compete for our money, they compete for our time. Time spent on pirated entertainment is time not spent on legally obtained entertainment. So instead of spending time using piracy to sample a slew of products, use that time on products you feel confident enough in to actually buy (e.g. games that have actual demos, or generate enough good customer reviews to assuage any worries, or games that are cheap enough to be worth the risk).
The second issue is the messages that piracy sends to people in the gaming industry. Many see piracy as lots of lost sales, and under the mindset that stopping piracy will boost sales we get plenty of annoying DRM schemes. I think this mindset is a deeply flawed analysis of the situation, but it still does seem to exist, and the persistence of piracy only helps to fuel it. Additionally, there is the lack of a message to the companies putting out half-assed products that there are plenty of alternative products out there that people can and will go with. This is the whole "voting with your dollars"... er, pounds... that is the only language most companies understand. Showing that demand for a product can and will be supplanted by demand for a different product accomplishes this; pirating the original product does not. It also sends the message to people looking to produce quality (although perhaps not as extensively hyped and marketed) products that even if their competitors are pumping out crap products people would still rather pirate those crap products than buy the quality products that others are producing. That's really not a message I want potential new innovators in the industry to be getting.
So please, expand your horizons a bit and actually go looking for quality products that you are willing to pay for rather than spending your time on products that you aren't willing to pay for.

@Gundato
You keep on telling me to acknowledge I am a pirate, and I keep on saying I AM A PIRATE, I have never said I am not. I refer to my downloading of games, movies and music as PIRATING or torrenting. What else do you want me to do in my effort to declare myself a pirate?
I have not played freelancer, I did however play a game called "The jupiter incident", I torrented it and quite liked it. It has more or less no replay value, yet I still bought a hard copy. Barely touched it, I only opened it to check it looked alright then put it on my shelf.
As for Halo, I quite liked Halo when I first played it. I pirated it in fact like the evil scum I am. Funnily enough I have a copy sitting on my shelf as well.
You mention the Witcher, I own a copy of the witcher that I bought straight off as I was pretty deffinate I would enjoy it. (I also like the company and their attitude).
I torrent things I am unsure about but think I would like, though I would not pay for unless I was sure. If I don't like them I remove them (typically within a few hours). If I like them I usually buy them (not always, I REALLY want to get space above and beyond on DVD but it isn't available in R2), often I buy a legit copy before I finish playing it.
So by way of your analogy, I don't pay to see "Avatar" then think I have the right to steal "quantom of solace". I pay to see "Avatar" because I was sure I would like it and pirate a copy of "quantom of solace" before deciding whether to pay for it as I don't know if I will like it.
Also speaking of freeware earlier, I play tremulous alot, I have actually donated �15 to the project because I enjoy playing it. I know this doesn't really effect your arguement I just want to point out that I will pay for things I enjoy, I just don't want to pay for those things I don't enjoy and would like to know whether I enjoy it or not BEFORE paying often substantial amounts of money (of note, us europeans tend to be charged more than north Americans for games).
Now of course I could be lieing about all of this, but then why would I say I am a pirate in the first place?
So, I will pay for a game I enjoy playing whether I plan on playing it again or not, so you can't use that against me. I only pirate a game if I am unsure whether I would want to buy it in the first place (I won't pay for things I am unsure about), so I am not denying the developers/publishers money.
The fact that you don't wish to believe me when I say I do something makes it seem like your more interested in winning an arguement or using me as a focal point for your issues with piracy as a whole. I acknowledge that what I am doing is illegal, and that piracy as a whole is harming the games industry. However personally I feel I am using torrents as a rather large demo-ing service and by not pirating I would be putting alot less money into the pc gaming market than I otherwise would.
I am not disagreeing with your general stance on piracy, many pirates are just "free tards" who don't want to pay for their entertainment and I disagree with that, but not all pirates are like that. If you lump me in with the "free tards" then fine, I can't be arsed to continue this.
As for achievements: Don't really see the point, most seem too easy to earn. Just completing a game gets you a half dozen.
@Chautemoc hmmmm, if I don't need to register the main game then maybe I will buy a copy, I was somewhat pissed at the registration requirement for DLC at every re-install and I just decided to pass on the whole thing. Though I am still tempted to wait in the hopes of a GOTY.
@Darrkphoenix you raise many a fair point, some of which occured to me shortly after I started pirating. I could say I disliked the game but if I spent a week playing it that would be dishonest, now though I quickly decide on whether I will buy the game or not. I will also take risks on games that arn't so expensive. I bought the double pack of max payne a few weeks ago because it was going reeeeaaaalllly cheap, or for that matter some of the GOGs. As I mentioned I pirate to test out newer games that have �30 or so price tags.

You go for demos when they are available then?
I can empathize with the lack of demos thing assuming that's the case, I just don't pirate still personally...mainly for reasons DarrkPhoenix stated nicely.
Registration requirement? You only need to register once. That ties it to your account forever.
I strongly encourage you to buy the game. Even with no DLC, it's the most amount of value I've gotten out of a game in about a decade. It's one of the few I can see myself playing in 10 years or more.
According to this, a GOTY edition seems likely.

@ Chautemoc
I used to go for demos before I started using torrents but now I don't bother. Some designers fluff their demos a little bit. It is easier just to get a torrent. Though I sometimes check out demos, but usually only when I have followed a game in development.
If Demos were more widely available (and accurately represented the game as a whole) then I would probably pirate games less.
Eh, ties it to my account forever? I assume your talking about the DLC and not the main game. When they were first discussing DLC I was on the forums and asked them if once registered, I could play the DLC whenever I liked and remove and reinstall whenever I liked with or without a net connection, the answer was no. If I uninstalled DA and the DLC then reinstalled from a CD containing the DLC I would need to connect to the bioware account and validate it.
It isn't a huge issue I know, but it still annoyed me that I could have something I paid for potentially end up being unplayable if their servers went down for whatever reason (E.G. Bioware closes down and EA in general could not be arsed to continue the service).
As for a GOTY, I assume you were talking about this section:
Any compilation packs planned?
FM: You’ll have to wait and see.
Hot damn, I will deffo keep my eyes open for that.

Fair enough.

I know some developers/publishers do that but I've never experienced it personally, and I've tried a lot of demos.
Well that's unfortunate. However, like you said, it's definitely much better than what Ubisoft is doing. And it's only like that in the first place because of pirates. So I see it more as supporting a company with progressive methods of fighting piracy than a company punishing the customer (if only in a small sense).
They seem reasonable anyway and said with ME1 for example they'd release a patch to make it playable should servers go down. I assume the same would happen here. You'd be taking them at their word of course...

So, quick question what about those of us who work in regions of the world where we are unable to purchase *whatever*.
COD; MW1 for PC is unable to be shipped to Iraq (via amazon and most other stores). So I either have to have a friend buy a copy and then send it to me, or I go down to the Haji shop which is im guessing sells me a pirated copy for 2 bucks........ (I did buy a legit copy however in less then about 4 hours i had finished the pirated copy...)
Norton 360 (which I use) expired this year for me, rather back in December of 09. However do to restrictions on the customs department I am unable to purchase a copy. (I then used a US based IP to buy a copy and called the company via Skype using an US based phone number saying it would not update my subscription because of where I was yet they in fact charged my card for it.... After dealing with them for an hour on the phone they set me up to reup my subscription...)
Steam also has issues....(APO AE vs NY postal code...../sigh)
Impluse as well....(same as steam)
I make a lot of money and do pay for 99.99% of my games legit at some point *generally after finally getting ahold of someone who at their company can work their magic and sell me the item I am after* (im still kinda pissed about an issue I had with Bioshock 1 back in the day, and even uploaded some video of me blowing it up lol)
soliders/Marines make very loyal consumers, yet companies go out of their way to piss em off....
Granted there is only approx 300,000 US Troops in Iraq/Afgan and another 100,000 contract workers, and another 50,000 teachers/aid workers (like me). However something Blizzard did, which WAS fantastic, was make a server for both Iraq and Afganistan and allow us to import our char's to said server so we could continue to play.........
Blizz solved the problem soliders were having, and now they are making money off us.......... we in turn are enjoying a product we pay for..........
Why cant the other companies do the same?
Why do I have to jump through a million freaking hoops to be legit?
Does it make more sense for me to pay my 60$ for the hassel or does it make sense for me to pay 1/33rd the price of whatever game it was and have NO ISSUES whatsoever?
Sony, sent me a disc with ff7 on it because I had issues downloading the game, they also put a whole bunch of other games on the disc (demo's which if I liked I could connect to the internet and buy to unlock the full game). I ended up buying all the games they sent me even Flower....
Instead of trying to *combat piracy*, why not offer consumers better products, with better support, and less fuck you's to the people who would rather be treated like a consumer then a criminal?
I recently got another game via Sony Final Fantasy Tactics, with again a whole fuck ton of demos on it, this time, it was ps3 demo's. Granted.... I'd have to buy the games and wait for discs to arrive at least they are providing another option so I can try them and make my purchases with at least some idea if I will like it or not..........
Anyway......... I dunno... I try not to pirate everything. However if a company is unwilling to work with me, then I will find a company that is. If I want to buy a pizza and tell the company i'll give them an extra 100 dollars if they go out of their way to deliver it to me, chances are the company is going to deliver it to me.
You ever go to the airport, and have to wait in line at customs/passport controll? I never do, at least in the states, UAE, Iraq, Afganistan, Thailand, Germany, I paid for a service to not have to deal with that issue, they get money I get less hassel.......... isnt that the way it should work? I obviously wouldnt pay to be held up at the airport for hours WAITING....... and waiting and waiting and waiting......
If I buy something......... I expect it to work, END OF STORY.
I expect when I get bumped off 1st class to be comp'd in some way. Sure enough it happens.
I expect when my shipment from Amazon gets lost they will take care of it and sure enough they do. Which has only happened 3 times so far, but, it is always nice to know a company will belive you.
My bank sent me some paperwork to my work, and I sent them back some paperwork. The next day the outgoing convoy with mail got hit..... I called my bank said, can you resend the paperwork, they asked if I could get email. I obviously could, so they emailed it to me, and I emailed it back........point is... they worked with me to solve the problem.
blah... grats if you read all that... lol

I do recall that CD-Projekt Red sent someone a boxed copy of The Witcher because the person couldn't get it in their country. I don't remember the exact details but I think they posted about it on the forum here.

Yup they did. That's basically the story. It's a good one.

Yep I remember that story to, part of the reason I support them, buy excess copies of their games, give away copies and support them.
I understand that somethings are just not commonly practiced anymore, and it is fine. But people willing to support people who would shit on you is just baffeling to me.
Back in 08 I gave a nice chunck of change to a politican who won granted my 10k should not mean I should get my way but when the mofo did not follow what he was preaching when he was running. Yet, this year he is up for election again, and his campaign manager called me, asking why I would not be donating to their fund..........
I know, apples and oranges however, same principal applies, burn me once shame on you burn me twice that is my bad.............