Confession...

[Sexbad]

I don't really agree with pirating indie games

Personally, I don't agree on pirating any games / programs / music / movies / or any other copyrighted stuff.

Crime is a crime. No matter if you steal from big company such as EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft or, in this case, Frictional Games, by pirating their product. Same thing is that you walk into your favourite store and put the same product into your pocket and walk away like nothing happened.

Nope, illegal downloading is not analogous to walking into a shop and taking something without paying. Duplication is not theft.

If I go into a retailer with £30 and buy a game costing £30 and then take another game that looked interesting, the retailer has lost a physical product he could have sold. I have taken that item from circulation and he now can not sell it to someone else. This is theft, stealing, whatever you call it.

If I go to a digital distributor with £30 and buy a game, leaving me with £0 and then download another game illegally from elsewhere instead of buying it, the same number of products remain in circulation and I had no money to pay for it. Nobody has been deprived of anything. This is not theft.

I do not condone piracy but if it is going to be addressed it needs to be done sensibly, and not by misrepresenting the facts. Inaccurate comparisons aren't going make anyone sit up and listen.

By stealing a game digitally, you're right that a company is not losing anything, but they're not gaining anything either. If it's a good game then they deserve the money. Of course by playing and liking it you're not taking away from what they already have, but you definitely taking away financial potential.