I just went and gave away 20 copies of games to friends.

Here’s the thing: “piracy” is the best form of samplers ever invented. Or giveaways, for that matter. GOG gave me a copy of Fallout 1, I tried it, liked it, bought the second.

Can’t say the same for Empire Earth. Just not my thing. I liked EE1, but I’m spending more and more time playing 0 AD.

Or, confession alert, I pirated Mega Man Battle Chip challenge. Played through the first tournament, put it on my “buy this” list, and forgot all about it. Fast forward three years, and I managed to buy a used copy.

Wait. What?

Let’s step back and look at these examples.

For example 1, the whole “free game” thing worked out well. Between actually selling Fallout 2 and me liking the original, they converted a total noob to raving fan.*

Example 2 shows that not all people who try a game will buy the sequel. Metal Gear learned this lesson hard – each game has sold less than the predecessor. I saw a different game, a better game, and went and “bought” that instead.**

Example 3 is Example 1 gone wrong. TPirate tries it, likes it, can’t buy it, and forgets about it. Buys it used, since it’s not available new from devs, and devs get no money. Boo.

–

* Of Black Isle, aka the Wasteland 2 devs

Idiotic comment.

Competition is the basis for all good business, but criminal acts are not competition. Piracy isn’t competition, in movies that would be someone making a better movie, a better TV show, whatever.

Piracy isn’t competition at all, it’s decimation.

” Would Rockstar be stealing profit from Deep Silver? No.”

Exactly, competition. Taking the competitors game and giving it away (and profiting by giving out discount coupons for other sites or products) would not be competition, would it? It would be a crime.

I love a free market,but I also love a fair market. Piracy isn’t a fair market.

See: The Case For Copyright Reform

Actually, no. It means that the market may be large enough to support more competition. It’s called the Economy of Scale: as more consumers appear, the price drops to near zero.

Or, let’s take something else as an example. GTAV and SRIV. Would Rockstar be stealing profit from Deep Silver? No. GTAV and SRIV appeal to different tastes (and many buy both).

tl;dr
You like monopolies. Therefore, you are the enemy of the Free Market.

Forget stopping the NSA. Santa’s the real threat to privacy here…