That’s a dishonest argument. You are stealing. It’s just not the media that you’re stealing. You’re stealing income from the creator.

I don't agree. I think your trying to compare this to wage theft, wherin an employee is promised or legally guaranteed some income based on hours work, where after both parties have agreed to this the employee has performed the work and the employer is withholding some of the pay. This case is stealing - the trade was completed and the employer is in possession of an asset (eg the pay that they are entitled to) - this is not a physical thing, but it is a real thing, with real physical value, and in removing that the employer would stealing that asset. Obviously there's a garguntuam difference here because both parties had agreed to exchange assets and the employer has taken ownership of that pay per the agreement. If someone decided to do that same work, absent agreement, obviously they can't claim wage theft because they didn't have any entitlement.

To be intellectually honest, you'd compare piracy to plagiarism. But that's (correctly) not as alarming as stealing which is why we need to mislead people to make it seem worse.

Imagine there’s an amusement park ride that you want to go on. If you find a way to sneak onto the ride, are you “stealing” the ride? You’re not stealing the physical ride but you’re entitling yourself to the experience without paying the person who has to create, run, maintain, and sell that experience.

Entering without permission (in your example, paying) is trespassing. It's fine argument to say that it's morally wrong and that you shouldn't do it. It's blatantly wrong to claim it is stealing.

Digital content is the same way. You’re justifying it because, in today’s day and age, most content is provided by giant corporations and financial assholes but don’t pretend that you’re not harming the creators of said work and potentially keeping them from making a living. If we lived in a perfect world where everyone was honest, we would have all this content be free and people would pay for it if they enjoyed it and wanted more of it and they’d just refuse to pay for things they thought were shit. This insistence that you’re not stealing because you’re not stealing the vehicle of entertainment is stupid and dishonest, though.

Digital content is the same way, insofar as piracy is more akin to trespassing than theft. It's an abstract argument to say not buying something is harming owners or creators, who are you (or anyone else) to dictate what people buy, or to attach some morality to that?

You say it harms creators, but the evidence says that pirated games make more money. I imagine your claim is based on an assumption that people who pirate stuff do so at the expense of people buying it. Have you bothered to explore that assumption any further? You might be surprised.

Just admit you’re stealing and leave it at that. Attempting to justify the morality of it (or whatever you’re attempting to do here) just makes you look silly. You’re taking the “benefit” of the content without reciprocating.

Piracy is quite literally not stealing. Stealing is an act of removing something from another's possession, into your own. That is simply not what piracy is, and trying to falsey equate different crimes is every but as absurd as "stop pretending driving 5mphover the limit isn't murder, it's wrong and trying to justify the morality of it makes you look silly"