When I was 10, we got a Commodore 64. That began my obsession with computer gaming. I probably had ~200 games and about 99% of them were "pirated". Why? Because it was easy to do and my parents, while occasionally buying a game for me, would certainly *not* have bought two hundred+ games. I was young and I didn't see it as doing anything wrong. I just knew that I wanted to play all these games and programs like Fast Hack'em made that possible (and really easy to do).

As I grew up, I eventually came to realize that the people making these cool games weren't just doing it for fun but in many cases, it was their livelihood. But even though I had started to get the feeling that what I was doing was wrong, I still justified it based on the fact that I was just a kid and I didn't have any money to buy these games anyway. And since I didn't have the money, it wasn't like the people who were selling these games were actually losing out on anything.

By the time I was in high school, I had a part time job and I'd buy the occasional game but I also still pirated games, too. By this time, computer gaming had become a lot bigger than it used to be. There were lots of games out now that I wanted to play but I certainly couldn't afford to buy all of them. My parents made me pay for my car insurance (not cheap, of course) and naturally, a teenage boy needs money to spend on girls! I still wanted to "try out" all the new games and a lot of my friends were into gaming, so I had access to the games. Why should I deny myself what I want to do just because I don't have enough money? Life is tough!

Then I went to college. I'd always had an interest in computers since that Commodore 64 (and the Atari 2600 and Intellivision before that). What could be a better career than computer programming? So I started working on my computer science degree. Between classes, girls, friends, and a part time job, was still my desire to play all the *amazing* computer games that were being released. The Internet was still in it's infancy at that time but BITNET provided access to that Wolfenstein 3D demo and, a few days later, the full pirated version of the game! At some point, I "needed" a copy of Microsoft Office. Do you know how much that costs?!?!? OMG!!! I don't have that kind of money. Wait, now I need this Visual Studio thing for a programming class? Holy crap! I thought Office was expensive! Fortunately, I "knew some people who knew some people" and presto! A copy (literally) of Office and Visual Studio. Yeah, I knew it was "wrong" to have an unlicensed (pirated) copy of that software but I *needed* it. And Microsoft shouldn't charge so much for their software!

I finally finished that degree and I was very fortunate to get a good paying job as a software engineer at a major commercial software developer/publisher. For the first time in my life, I was finally earning a good salary. I worked a lot more hours than I thought I would, especially around crunch time. When the first product I worked on was shipped and became available in retail stores, I was pretty proud of that because it represented a lot of hard work on the part of a lot of people. By now, the Internet was really exploding and with it, the availability of pirated software. Usenet was laden with pirated software (and porn). To no surprise, the software that I'd put so much time into was also out there freely available for anyone to download. I knew it would be but seeing it was frustrating. Knowing that I (and a lot of other people) had put so much hard work into this product that sold for ~ $50 but could now be stolen and used by anyone for free really changed my perspective on software piracy. If people could take that product and use it without paying for it, then my employer wouldn't be earning money from sales and I (or someone else) might end up losing a job because of it.

I can honestly say that since that time, I haven't pirated software. Period. I've read so many justifications that people offer up for why they do it, why it's ok to do it and why it's not the same as stealing. For the most part, I think it boils down to people not being willing to deny themselves of something that they want when they're presented with the opportunity to get it for free. And if you read this whole thing, you know that that's something I could relate to for a large part of my life.

Today, my primary hobby is still computer gaming and I buy quite a few games. I have a couple of games that are six months old sitting on my bookshelf that I have yet to even open. Do I buy every game I want? No. I can't afford it. So I have to make choices about what I want the most. I'm sure that all of those games that I'd like to play but don't own are available right now through Torrent, Usenet, FTP, etc. But I feel like if I'm going to play a game, I should be paying the people who made it because that's how they earn their living.