The only games that I have 'pirated' copies of are the oldies. I'm a gamer and have been since 1981 when the PCjr came out. Now thanks to certain sites I can enjoy my Castle Wolfenstein 2D again and other games like them. I have owned nearly all of them at one time in my life, save for a couple hundred of em, and it is good to see them coming back into the limelight. Modern games really irritate me because they focus so much on the graphics, that you nearly get zero game with it. In the old days you had to squeeze everything into a small confined area of memory and some of the oldies have more gameplay, more dynamic campaigns, etc., than the new ones. What gives?? For instance, the old Aces of the Pacific had torpedo bombers, Pearl Harbor sequences, dynamic campaigns, etc. Now I love CFS2, but it lacks in all those areas. I mean c'mon, if Dynamix squeezed all of it into 640 K and 2MB of RAM, why can't MS squeeze it into 256MB? So I go back to the old games simply because they keep my attention longer and because most, not all, are just plain better games than today's breed.
As far as programming, I use NASM for assembly which is freeware (I don't know how, but it is - it is great), and DJGPP which is also freeware. I used to have a uny copy of TC++ 1.01, but now Borland has release it as public domain so it is not pirated anymore. I do have VB6, not installed, and loads of other compilers from the internet, all old DOS QB, VB, Pascal, etc. Granted the QB and VB for DOS are not public domain, but gimme a break, no one is losing money on my copy trust me. As far as VB6, I have it for educational reasons only, and like I said, it ain't even installed right now cuz I just don't like it for personal use.
And as far as Windows running on 2 machines in my house. You bet. If I buy an OS, it is not just for me, it is also for my family. I'm not going to buy 5 OS's just so everyone in the family can have their own copy. If the law excludes families as being one entitiy or one user, then there is something wrong with the law. What I buy is for my household and for a company to say otherwise, I think, is a violation of my privacy and of my house. I do not burn CDs for anyone at anytime. The current EULA needs to be revised to allow families that live under the same roof to use the software. One might make the argument for businesses, but to me that seems a totally different area. MS told me that to have MM2 running on my machine and my wife's so we could do multi-player was a violation of the license. I was very polite, but also told her that I have hundreds of games, all bought, and I'm not a pirate - but her suggestion of buying 2 games so we could both enjoy the same one, was ludicrous. It is at that point that I think companies have gone too far with the piracy issue.
Also, the current employees at game companies probably do not even realize how many games their company has the rights to. They don't support them, sell them, or even prob know about them. The only people that care about old games anymore, are gamers like me and people who enjoy browsing the past efforts to see just how far we have progressed today. Personally as a programmer it would be an honor for some gamer to play my old 486 game on his new Athlon or P4 simply because he likes the game so much. Perhaps these companies are sitting on gold mines and could re-release some of the oldies or re-vamp them. Hey if it ain't broke, don't go trying to fix it right?
All in all, piracy irritates me. Lots of people on AOL ask me to hack, pirate, give them CD keys, etc. I tell them to stop making my price go up and go buy the game. Heck if you wait for long enough you can buy the game for $20 and get the patches and expansion packs with it. There is never a just cause to pirate a recent game. Programmers deserve to get their pay. So I agree that if you are copying game, apps, utils, etc. just so you do not have to pay, you are a thief. It's really all about your attitude towards paying or not paying. I'll pay myself - better support, better product, better security, better deal.
