Is piracy a necessary evil?

[Greyblades]

I started pirating games when I was 14-15, I did it mostly to get 15/16/18 games that I could not get legally, regardless of monetary concerns. Fallout 3 I think was the first big game I downloaded, I loved it but I couldn't get it for hell or high water.

When I became a recluse, pirating was a crutch that I think was responsable for me getting through the last two years of secondary school. Probably kept me from the highest level grades, but I was a kid, I didnt care and I was generally dissatisfied with schooling anyway. Were it not for the support for the home tutors I was given by the state I probably would have ended up with a maximum of D's. Anyway, pirating gave me games for no money, as I had little, and without having to go out in public, which was terrifying and otherwise unavoidable. When I found a game I really liked I saved up and got it "to support good developers" or however I justified it. Good games were infrequent so I didnt have to do that often, which suited me fine being an aformentioned recluse.

As I got older, out of school and into college, losing the revclusive-ness, being able to get higher rated games I started running out of proper excuses so falling back on the money issue more and more I kept pirating, because hey I'm a student, it's expected that I act like a cheap bastard. I kept on buying the good stuff: total war, mass effect, gal civ 2, SOASE but with getting older I found myself getting more aware of the outside world and ultimately more disillusioned. Constantly I learned about corporate evils, people being laid off for screw ups higher up the corporate ladder, SOPA and Protect IP, politicians screwing up every country. My sympathies for the rich and powerful was drying up is what I'm saying, and guess who it was that kept complaining about piracy. So with my concience assauged with practicallity and some small bit of spite I pirated on through college.

Then came March 6th 2012, piracy let me get mass effect 3 earlier than the EU release date, so I downloaded it and marathoned it, completeing it in two days. It broke something inside of me. Any patience and sympathy I had for game publishers went out the window and that the offending part apparantly originated from one of the office people instead of "the evil corporate overlords" basically put to rest any concerns I had about inadvertently harming the little guys, they can be undeserving just as easily.

My money woes have basically gone now but I still pirate games, I sympathise with indies enough to buy out of curtesy but I check the mainstream games out first. If they're worth my money I buy them, if they're not I dont care about them and I have afew suggestions where they can stick thier notions of potential profit loss. EA's not getting my money at all.

In my opinion, kids are justified because theyre kids, adults arent justifed but I dont care if they do. I dont pirate out of necessity, I do it out of spite and apathy.