I always got downvoted for saying it too on a PIRACY sub! Shits wild.

Is it? It sounds more like the people on the privacy subs had morals and knew their limits.

If you go to the bar and the bartender says "drinks are on the house!", you're still not going to go and order every single drink on the menu. You're not going to go off and drink yourself under the table, just because you personally don't have to pay for it. You understand that there's an opportunity to have something for free and you respectfully take up the offer and enjoy yourself.

Yes, video game practices are often downright toxic: Paying DLC for content that's already on your PC/ Disk. Unfinished games, loot boxes, low quality remasters, buggy releases - I get it. I'm not going to spend $70 of my hard earned money on some crap and have it be half the product I was promised, or have DRM that prevents me from playing the game further into the future.

But what about great indie titles like Baldurs Gate 3? Where's the justification there? It's some honest Devs who put everything into an amazing product. Why not spend the money you've saved up on other piracies on a well-deserved title?

Some smaller indie titles need every sale. It literally pays for their livelihood. Why pirate their work too?

There's honour among thieves. There's a code to not screw over the people who are making games for the love of it. If you don't care about any of that, fine. But don't go around bragging about it like it's your God-given right to steal.

Stealing everything from everyone isn't something you should be proud of. We all can't afford a lot of things atm, and that's understandable. But there are people out there trying to afford stuff by selling those very same games. Have a bit of respect for the game.

I've been pirating software since 1985. Piracy was never about just stealing shit for the fuck of it, I mean you can do that if you want, but the point was that human culture and expression shouldn't be something that is afforded only certain demographics and those who have money.

You may feel like those ideals are completely irrelevant to you, but that's the type of hacker mentality that the people who actually crack software and share it online for people like you often hold.

That depends totally on the reason you pirate stuff. What are your motivations behind pirating? There are probably a ton of different reasons people do it. I often see people bragging about it so I guess fragile masculinity is a main factor in pirating as well. Or like another commenter said, it could be to experience freedom.

To me, it seems like a political act to pirate stuff from large corporations but pay money for indie media and small creators. Just like I would shoplift in large supermarket chains while I would never shoplift in a small family-run store.