I'm rich, so I buy it, rip it and upload it to pirate bay.

Take it as a challenge and waste inordinate amounts of time finding it 'free'!

This is exceedingly rare, but I would buy it and then share it with the world for free.

Give up, it's all just entertainment for me, so i can just go and be entertained by something else.

Usually the second, which is the most common option, because we know objectively that studios are in fact not "losing" eleventy billion dollars to piracy. If that were true most people would choose the first.

I'm not buying the new Pokémon game. I'll play it on an emulator if it's not too much hassle. I don't have plans to ever buy it, and if it never works on emulation, I will just not play it.

In a different case, I've gone from pirating a bunch of games to buying them because I liked them and wanted the updates. BG3 for example.

You either die a leecher or live long enough to become the seeder

Piracy is typically my last resort. It means it's already unavailable under acceptable conditions.

Give up. I refuse to pay for artificially scarce goods.

This same applies to public transport tickets, end up either staying home or walking for hours so I don't have to pay for the damn tickets that should be free.

It's never really about the price, it's about the convenience.

It's usually the opposite that's the issue for me. If it's not free, OK, let's pay, but if it's not a reasonable price for the product (including both the content, usability, and reusability, in case of media), then I'll go out of my way to get it free or totally give up on it depending on how much I want it. That's why I switched from piracy to Netflix for many years and now am back to piracy because I like shows in the background while working on projects, for example, or piracy, then Steam, then, fuck gaming as much because I found other hobbies.

Most of the stuff I want to pirate, is because they are expensively rare or not available through stores. Mind, that might change in the future, just because of how crap the US economy is becoming for the ordinary person.

I want to support cool stuff by paying, if the terms are reasonable. That means no DRM, all content, and an appropriate price. It is mostly hentai games that I am buying, since the developers of those definitely need the money.

Cannot speak for anyone else, but it depends on his badly I want it and whether or not I am willing to give money to said compant/person/whatever.

Is it an old out of print game that suddenly had prices jacked up 500% by scalpers/scammers? It ain't worth me trying to find a ROM if the sources I like don't have it, nor buying it.

Is it from some indie dev/devs that probably don't have the financial stability to afford everyone pirating their game? I'm more likely to buy if I can afford.

Did a large company like Sintendo, Activision, etcetera, make it? For older titles, I am likely to buy if it's a low enough price and I have a real interest in it. Newer titles? I usually don't bother because the quality for most triple AAA studios isn't up to par for me since I don't like buying reskins of the same game with somehow less of the basic features available unless you pay.

Side note: looking forward to Black Ops 99 where you have to pay $9.99 per pixel to be able to see the screen as you play and still have people buy the game, willing to pay for every pixel... only to find out the game servers are constantly offline for an online only experience they don't get to play and by purchasing the game you somehow agreed to give Activision access to your bank account to do as they please with that money.

Edit:

For shows and movies, if I can't easily find it, I don't bother because it's a much bigger hassle than video game piracy. Same with books.

I'm not employed and have little to no money, so...

Depends on what it is... if it's a movie that I can't find, I'll usually just wait until an ethical version shows up somewhere later.

If it's a research paper or a book I'm looking for, though, I take paywalling as a personal insult - I usually go to extreme lengths to obtain it, and I usually do get it.

I usually give up or find a free alternative. Typically, if something is available at a good price I won't bother trying to get it free to begin with.

It is very infrequent that I find myself needing a form of entertainment. Generally, when I am unable to find it on the high seas, it is entirely unobtainable through legal channels.

It is far more frequent that I find myself purchasing a thing I have previously pirated.

I never pay Capitalist corps/people unless pressured to a corner (most groceries, loans etc). I know they cheat, steal and lie - pretty much 24/7 - as their 'free market' gospel dictates, so any support for such a selfish/psychopathic organization are like shooting my self in the foot.

Intellectual 'property' is a special anti-intellectual joke that have emerged inside an existing Capitalist dystopia where everyone have to fight everyone else for their lives. So suddenly, some Capitalist smuck could whistle a tune, declare that sequence of sounds as "MY PROPERTY" and then - through violence! - everyone around the world have to pay this moron for the sequence of sounds. It doesn't get much more dumb than that. We even see cities 'protect' their landmarks, so a f'ing photo is illegal without paying up, copyright for well known everyday things, and so on. It is incredibly easy to find insane examples. It's all a race to the bottom, sigh.. Oc, Capitalism have zero to do with 'free markets', and everything to do with warring/exploitation/protectionism - but all corps will always exploit.

Unfortunately, Capitalism runs on pure scarcity, so we can't have surplus objects that can just be copied, tsk tsk, what disorder !! And of cause, if one lives in such a crappy backwards society, then everyone HAVE to fight for data that can be copyrighted, data that could otherwise be copied a gazillion times for everyones joy. So, Instead of free access to all that can be freely copied/enjoyed, we have capitalist silo's of 'property', where everyone are forced to pay up to a conglomerate of capitalist cancer-like entities that will go to any length - even jailing people that refuse that violent/ridiculous property nonsense. No no, for propertarians, it's better to slam everyone in the world with laws/threats of harm, to invade peoples privacy, and to have a whole multi-trillion business market, and an insane amount of law resources constantly working to keep this joke of a principle running. It all arose from out of that flawed premise of everyone fighting everyone else.. Inefficient, stupid, and all just an unnecessary emergent artifact on top of the dumbest ideology the oligarchs ever invented.

Piracy is my main resort been doing it so long. After HD-DVD lost I was done buying media. Don't get me wrong I still pirated before that but it was more renting and ripping DVDs.

Depends on how much I want it.

For music, I buy the CDs (if I can) to support the artist.
But I also recently ripped my whole spotify playlist.

For other types of media, if it's not in the quality I want, and it's reasonable in price, I'll pay it.
Then I'll rip it and put it in my library.

Keep searching , never ever give up .

The latter, because I don't have money

There's a child of books that I've bought in this way.

Also I bought some books that I've pirated, to support the author.

Depends. Sometimes I'll give it up all together. If I think it's worth it I'll buy it. Other times I thought it wouldn't be worth it and I pirate it and then I end up buying it afterwards. Other times I just wait for a steep discount/sale.