I agree on your 2nd point entirely, but, to clarify on your 1st comment you have to understand a few things:

1) I was working online, meaning doing work for a company outside of Venezuela and being paid around 80$ a month, no VEF, I spent all of that extra income in building a computer, this work lasted like a year.

2) There is however, a justification for piracy when you can't pay for the game even on sales, If you read the post carefully you will see that for a family of 5 can survive with the minimum they need 6 minimum wages, you can't survive on your own.

3) There are users, however, that can find other ways to get money, specially online, that's the way i've been paying my games, and still do, even when I just get 5$ a month or so, depending on what I can find.

4) The minimum wage on the time I built my computer was around 3500 VEF, meaning 43$ per month, in 2013, we are in 2015 now and we get 23$ per month, next month we will get around 26$ because of an 10% increment in the minimal wage, there hasn't been a "high" since I don't know, 2008, in your "highs and lows" example.

You don't need games to survive. That is not justification for piracy. Games are a luxury no matter where you live.

Heck, why did you even pay for the computer? You can't afford it, so just break into the PC store overnight and steal it. There's really no difference...

I feel for your situation, but there are plenty of people that don't have a computer at all. Just because you own one doesn't entitle you to steal software for it.

I never said I need games to survive, I said that I want to pay for my games at least with what I can, that's better in my book than pirating the game itself, also, I worked hard to buy a computer because most of the work I did back then was using one.

Whats this about the subsidized exchange rate? Why can't you buy stuff with it?

We can only use 300$ per year at that rate, only if you have a credit card from a public bank, and are approved.

If you spend that, or use a credit card from any other bank that isn't public, you simply can't use the card outside, it will get automatically declined.

Obviously, since everything is so expensive, a lot of people sell those 300$ to other people, or buy things that they need outside since it is cheaper, most people including me, spend those 300$ buying things that they need, like clothing, medications, electronics, games, etc instead of selling them.

I normally save what I can from those 300$ (if possible) to buy some cheap games per year.

But if the minimum wage is 21$ a month, then 300 per year is more than that.

1. Yes, people do need games to survive.
Clicky.
Clicky. (#3)

2. No, pirating games you honestly wouldn't have bought doesn't eat into developer profits (actually, it adds to developer profits through secondary channels).

3. No, regional pricing isn't developers subsidizing countries, nor are they building the customer base for the future or anything. Regional prices, when working as intended (sans bootlegging), are meant to increase profits directly.

4. GOG doesn't set prices, including regional prices. Rightsholders do. Steam has enough market clout to make "strong suggestions" as to what prices should be to maximize profits. They can engage in offensive corporatespeak and not suffer for it in the slightest, so when Steam says "this is the price you should set", rightsholders listen. GOG doesn't have this clout; if they were to suggest regional pricing to increase profits, developers would just assume GOG wanted to negotiate a speshul discount to corner the Venezuelan market. So there's not much they can do.

What you should do is spend what you can on DRM-free media and pirate when you're out of money. Don't, however, indiscriminately pirate DRM-free media "because why not" and spend money on DRM-infected shit that you're forced (or "strongly encouraged") to pay for. In a hypothetical situation when you have $60 and want to get TW3 and/or GTA5, pirating TW3 and paying for GTA5 (thus accessing "definitive" versions of both games) looks like the best decision -- but it actually seriously hurts both you and other gamers across the globe by incentivizing anti-consumer and disincentivizing pro-consumer policies and practices.

But just one question, I understand the point 2) but if you cannot even afford games on sales, how do you people afford medium to powerful PCs? and about the point 4) which hardware do you own? I am interested not only in your situation but in the general market there.

What about consoles? I guess only for "rich" people?

The minimum wage is 21$ per month, yes, plus those 300$ you can get almost free in comparision, that would be like 500$ per year in total.

Now, getting pcs, consoles or mediums to play games doesn't necesarilly mean it is for rich people, there are a lot of enthusiast that spend those nearly free 300$ in hardware, it may not be one hell of a computer at first but after constantly upgrading over the years you can have some decent stuff, that is the "average" situation.

And I guess it will be a whole big ¨scene¨ about "modded" consoles, and piracy websites for PC games, right?

I think something is missing from translation, but I'll guess what you tried to say.

Yes, moded consoles to be able to play pirated games is common, but people prefer buying games, PC, on other hand is dominated by pirates.

What would be your ideal ¨game prices¨ ? And for your friends? Do F2P games work fine there? (not paying users vs paying users)

In perspective, russian prices are pretty much ideal, they aren't cheap but they aren't expensive, they are about right.

And, about F2P games, the most popular ones are those that do not requiere to spend anything to get better equipment, like DotA, pretty much nobody spend anything on F2P games.

Thx! Is very interesting information! Besides this, I really hope your situation will be solved in the next years.