I agree.......

I found Freespace 1 & 2 GOG rips on a torrent site... Wasn't impressed but it's very true that not everybody can afford the games they want to play.

I am sorry but i can't relate to that idea. I found it bit insulting infact, because good customers should not have to pay for criminals.

Aw now pirates are criminals. It's no wonder that the amount of suicides in Finland is that big :)

You're not paying for criminals though, as the product is digital and not physical. The price you pay isn't artificially inflated(at GOG) due to people pirating copies of the games you bought(Like with physical product theft sometimes increasing prices of physical goods in stores), and the pirates aren't forcing you to buy the games to offset the copies they pirated and/or to support the company.

BTW LiquidSnake wasn't literally telling people to buy games here to offset the almost non-existent costs born by companies due to pirates...he was just suggesting(albeit half jokingly) what such people could do if they felt GOG WAS truly losing money from piracy.

You buying a game is down to you in the end, and as the copies pirated are usually not lost sales truly(due to many pirates not having the funds to have bought it in the first place or not wanting to pay in the first place.), the company isn't losing money or resources. Not justifying here, just illustrating a point.

Our species may have benefits from games. But they are still not essential for life. Food is essential. Drink is essential. Shelter is essential. But not computer games. They are (and have always been) a luxury good. Noted. So, what do you want to do about it? I mean, as others have already mentioned here, as long as there are ways to copy and multiply and share data, people will do so. The reasons are diverse and one may or may not understand them, it doesn't matter. People will always copy and share.

I think it's more important to focus on your paying customers and concentrate your efforts to make those happy. They are the ones that generate the income after all. Why waste essential time and efforts (= money) on things that you won't be able change anyway?

In case of GOG, I could even imagine that for example implementing some form of copy protection would have a negative effect on sales and revenue. The absence of any form of copy protection and DRM is a major decision factor for many people that buy games on GOG. GOG isn't advertising DRM free games for nothing. They do it for a reason and they know that peoples decisions whether to buy or not to buy a game often depend on the form of copy protection and DRM it comes along with.

Would copy protection or DRM stop people copying, cracking and sharing games? Nope! It hasn't for years and won't stop them now. Quite contrary, the more sophisticated a copy protection or DRM is said to be, the more challenging it is for the warez groups to crack it.

So again, I can see your point. It may be annoying to see people share even games from a publisher that most of us consider as a fair and good publisher. But, no matter what, we won't be able to stop it.

OP might got a little crazy if he went to some slightly bigger sites where GOG torrents can reach 2000+ downloads pretty easy.

Agreed but as I and others said the number of pirated downloads is irrelevant(largely) due to the fact that most pirates couldn't or wouldn't have bought the game in the first place and didn't deprive the company of a physical product or resource. The number could be tens of thousands of pirated copies and as long as none of those pirates had the resources to buy said game and/or didn't plan to buy it anyway and didn't steal anything physical from GOG to get said game copy then said pirate by and large(for the most part) don't contribute much to a loss on GOG's part as to finances/resources.

This.

Yes we have high suicide rates in Finland, but its not something you should joke about. I have tried to be polite and discuss this matter civilizied but all you do is make excuses for these "guys" i should say living garbage to continue their dark practices.

Even with the site redesign to include new and indie games? :\

The Witcher 2 have more than 20 thousand + downloads on Demonoid and still they sell 1.1milion copies and they keep on selling the game cause it is good. A lot of the pirates firstly pirate the game and then buy it

And your point is? People around here pirate movies and music these days because they can't just run out and buy a legitimate copy at the local music store. Also, thanks to region blocking they generally can't find it legitimately online either. The copies that would be bought are obvious TV rips that have been packaged up to look nice.

You also seem to be woefully ignorant of the history of computing by taking that stance. Most, if not all, people who grew up around computing from the '90s or earlier were pirating things off of the sneakernet or BBS and at that point it was considered to be normal, the likelihood of anybody being caught was minimal and in many cases if you liked it you would buy it. Not to mention that early on the whole notion of selling software was just nuts, you sold the machines and gave away the software to help sell machines.

Times change and these days piracy is something that's pretty much only excusable when you're somewhere that you can't buy the products legitimately. And even then you ought to delete it before you come home.

Turning it into an ad hominem attack where one isn't appropriate does you no favors.

Not to defend all who do such or try to justify it but you've made a few gross generalizations which sounded pretty insulting to mean possibly him as well as to what ALL pirates supposedly do or act like....just saying. :\

I agree that the suicide crack was a bit uncalled for though.
Regardless, piracy is piracy. Don't try to sugar coat or defend those who pirate movies and music due to region restrictions/availability over those who pirate games due to the same or similar reasons(if indeed you are attempting to or are doing that, intentionally or no.).

I agree he's not phrasing it in the best manner but he has some valid points under all that crudeness, I think.

Sorry for that. But you keep accusing pirates of doing crimes. Why don't accuse EU politics to take 10-12 thousand euros a month for doing nothing :)
Btw you said one thing that bother me much... you say you work in the summer to cover expenses on gaming... and I guess your parents cover your expenses for living and studying than. So ur point kinda suck atm ;)