Im like most average gamers. I pirate games and i also buy games.
Ive pirated quite a few over the years and majority were frankly shit and im glad i didnt buy them. There has been the occasional game that after playing the official demo i found to be superb so i bought it. Case in point is RTCW and BF1942. The demos of those games sold me and i snapped the retail up soon as they were out.
Now on the other hand, when games dont release demos and show highly detailed screenshots and promise features that sound great only for you to buy the game based on that without playing it and for it to be a steaming pile of bug ridden shite (BF: Vietnam) it makes you wish you had pirated it instead of handing over cold hard cash.
I downloaded Far Cry the full game as i wasnt sure on how it would perform on my system - the demos were a bit choppy but i heard full game ran a bit better so fair enough i downloaded it rather than buy it. Im glad i didnt buy it, it does run a bit better but the game is boring. Its eye candy and not much else. If i paid for it i would have been well pissed off. I never burned it to DVD (I got a single large .iso) i merely daemon tools'd it and when i played for a bit and found it crap i uninstalled and deleted the iso. No harm done there if you ask me.
My entire original game collection on PC consists of 8 games bought over the past few years. Everything else i pirated and im glad i had - if the game is worthy of buying i will. If I suspect its crap then i'll pirate it to get a true feeling (I dont trust some official demos) and if its very very good i'll buy it, if not then i might continue playing it every now and then or i'll uninstall and forget it.
If this makes me a dirty low down stealing scum bag then so be it - produce better games with lasting appeal that are worth the £30 or quit moaning about losing money thanks to pirates due to having a pretty wank game under your hood that nobody wants to buy anyway.