Actually either stealing or not paying somebody for the work (fraud) is kind of the same category for me. its both illegal and should be persecuted.

I don't know how to put it much simpler. If somebody does not agree with the price of a certain game, he is perfectly free to join others and produce a very, very similar game, maybe even better. There are not much legal restrictions to do so (usage of trademarks would be one). Also games are not essential for life and if you can wait, they tend to get cheaper over time. For 10$ or less for a good game there is not really an excuse for piracy.

You seem to have missed
- "look and feel" patents
- business method patents (relevant for online games)
- similarities in design (design patents)
exist in the US legal system.

And yes, there have been lawsuits over these things in regard to games.

So, no, there are legal restrictions. Just commenting on above quote.

I'm not particulary proud of it, but I used to play pirated games at large when I was a kid. Come to think about it, that's how I knew about them and why I am now buying all these pieces of youth sentiment at GOG. :-)

Come to think about it, I don't think I would have bought many of them when I was 12, if illegal copies weren't available. My stereo, computer hardware, LEGO and fancy bicycle were much more important. And then I would never have known about them either..

I couldn't always find the games I wanted to play at the store, so I resorted to pirating them. Games like Messiah, by the time I got into it, the game was relatively "obsolete". Ah, so many memories.

(re: Humble Indie Bundle 1)
srsly? I don't get it... what sort of dickhead (excuse my french) "pirates" a game he can get legitimately for $1, 10 cents, 1 cent or probably even $0.00? Why would anybody do that?

He was already there. It's sheer laziness, sure, but laziness is a factor in making purchasing/piracy decisions.

No internet connection, or what do you mean? If you could access torrents, you could as well acess humblebundle.com and download the games from there.

No credit cards. No money at the time. Don't want to give details online. Doesn't give a fuck.

You really can't judge people. Different understandings. ;)

I don't know how it works in Macedonia, but here everyone can get a prepaid credit card, you don't need to sign up for any contract. 'Don't want to give details online' and 'doesn't give a fuck' aren't even valid excuses... I guess the money thing is iffy. If you'd never buy it in the first place I guess it doesn't really matter, but then it's easy to rationalize taking just about any luxury. :/

Point is, if we say this is acceptable and it's a free-for-all then we can't really blame the industry for the DRM arms race. If a dev gives consumers the benefit of the doubt and goes against the current of the industry to make things great for them at a fair price and gets bitten for it, that really sends the wrong message and I can't respect anyone who would do that.

Yes, you are right. But I heard that these limits are rather low. You should not use trademarks of others and obviously copy their design 1 to 1. The question is how large a difference must be in order to constitute a new product. I would say, that every honest try to make a new product should be safe. But it's a risk. This big companies with their army of lawyers can sue the hell out of you, even if they are wrong. It's a big risk for every small company indeed.

But in principle consumers who don't like the products which are offered are free to found a new company themselves and only buy products from such a company. All the means to organize yourself are available.

While I knew I could not use my card through PayPal (don't know why) it was a complete surprise a few hours before the humblebundle ended to find out that my card didn't work with Amazon or Google check out. And I can pay on GoG or Steam or other sites just fine with it. It's a MasterCard. Luckly my wife's Visa worked but when you want to pay for something and they won't take your money how easy is it to say "fuck it" and load up torrents?

That's true, and I have no problem with that. The same thing happened to me with Fallout 3 DLC. I imported a foreign copy due to stupid censorship of the German version. GFWL (which I now boycott) apparently doesn't let you buy DLC for a game if you're outside of the region it was released for. Well, if they won't accept my money and it's not my fault then fuck them, I wasn't going to wait a year for the GOTY edition. If they want it they'll abandon these stupid region locks or I'll just go for the nearest torrent. I pay for games because I want to, not because I have to.