Spot on. Using regional pricing differences as a justification for drm is poor logic at best.

the weight of the arguments create dimensional rifts.

ORLY?

Name a single site that sells DRM free games at a lower rate for low income markets. Any.

GOG? Giving store credit to negate regional pricing.

GG? Uses DRM.

(Not that those two have, to my knowledge, special prices for low income areas)

The only site I can actually thing of using lower pricing for lower areas is Steam. Which is immensely successful with this.

In a recent interview Ryan C. Gordon listed a number of factors that were working in favor of Linux gaming, one of them was: "- Humble Bundle pushing really hard for Linux ports,". With the THQ bundle they have stopped pushing entirely.

By your logic, GOG is only selling racing games from now on.
Damn, that is a true classic. I actually have it still in my favourite thread list.

I think this is a lesson for all of us.

Yes, but that's the point. The fact that there is so much hassle to get a pirated copy working proves that the always-online DRM in D3 is really effective. It's nearly uncrackable, and even if there are server emulators, they'll never be as realiable and have as many features as the original version, which puts many potential pirates off. The model found in D3 does worry me a bit, i hope other publishers don't follow it, but the fact that it worked very well might encourage similar DRM.

Nope. Humble Bundle Inc caved when THQ came knocking on the door. By doing that they threw away getting in a Humble Bundle as a potential bonus for creating Linux versions. Before this a company may have gone cross-platform in anticipation of that getting them in through the door to a Humble Bundle. That won't happen any more because Humble Bundle sent the signal, loudly and clearly that there is no reason to do that any more. The same thing ofcourse applies to DRM free.

I don't agree with you there. I think most pirates do have a good enough financial status. Some people are just cheap, and will go by the logic "why pay if i can get it for free?". Most pirates i know could buy original stuff if they wanted.

From personal experience I must disagree. And I know back from the CD industry scare shakedowns a bit about the demographics that were caught in that shitstorm. They hardly had enough money to pay their normal bills, let alone anything what could remotely be considered entertainment.

Steams success in Russia also speaks volumes. That market had insane piracy rates for as long as anyone can remember. Nobody even bothered going there. Steam entered the scene, made games affordable at least for some. Bam, second biggest market even before Germany.

I'm not saying there aren't any people who pirate stuff they could buy, but the vast majority of pirates do pirate because of financial problems. Let's say they might have enough money to spend 20$ a month on games. With piracy they spend those 20$ on games and the rest gets pirated. Without piracy, those 20$ would be spend on other stuff.

I agree that lower prices are a very effective way to counter piracy, and i like Steam for what they have done in Russia and now here in Brazil. However, high prices or lack of money are not the only reason for piracy, and i dare to say that it's not even the main reason. iOS and Android games are really cheap, most of them are 1 or 2 dollars, yet the piracy rates are huge, which is why most companies are going the F2P route in the mobile market.

I understand your opinion and i think it's valid, but i still think that the majority of pirates are just cheap bastards. Yes, there are those who really can't afford anything, but i think that's a minority. I can't prove with real data what i'm saying, and i believe that you can't prove yours either, so let's just agree to disagree in this point.
Thank you for your time and attention.

Reason Android (and iOS I guess) piracy rates are idiotic decisions in Google HQ. I am forced to pirate paid Google Play things as they are unavailable in Serbia. Heck even developers told me go pirate it, we can't help you, with it.

Until few months ago (ok not few, but still) I couldn't afford to spend anything on gaming. Zero. Zilch. So I had to pirate, not to mention that I didn't have debit card. Now thinking about it, last time I pirated something, it was Spec Ops: The Line as everyone was talking about it. I'll buy it when I'm able to afford it, even if I don't play it again, as it's really great. But I recommended the game to quite a few people who bought it at full price, so I guess I'm not completely cheap bastard. Other than that...ME 3, as I really wanted to play it.
Oh, and for what it matters, some of my friends prefer to wait for crack to paying the game, even though they can afford it, which I find completely insane.

How many sites sell DRM free games?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

well said