Video game piracy was a staple of my younger gaming days. I’m not sure if it started because of the IRC channels I spent my summers on (in?) or if it was just because I thought free shit was cool but I was a kid-pirate in the 90’s. Back then, piracy wasn’t easy; 56k, ftp, irc, newsgroups were the methods. It was a much different environment from today’s 500k/s torrents. And yet, for a young person, I think the reasons are still mostly the same: cash money. I was too young to have a job and parents couldn’t keep up with all the awesome games coming out. Piracy was always the third parent you could coax into getting you Tribes or whatever.
I miss tribes. I have guilt.
Even until recently, I thought of piracy as a reasonable way of getting the new hotness. Today though, things are the polar opposite; I actually go out of my way to help support the games I enjoy. Finding out how to buy direct from the developer, buying developer paraphernalia and evangelizing the games that I love. This change may stem from multiple areas; I’m becoming a more responsible adult, I work in the games business feel some moral obligation or a simple realization that most games are crap and I need to help the amazing, creative developers. Whatever the reason, the result is that I now go above and beyond to show (my friends and the developers) my appreciation for the games that I love. Does this in anyway absolve me of my past sins? Does this give and take have any merit?
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