I did this with Baldur's gate 3. I liked it so much I went and bought it on steam. And still liked it so much I got the deluxe just cause it was the only time gaming I felt like I really wanted them to get more money

Who cares?

Yes.

cool, imma do that once i can afford it

Based.

Copyright should be illegal also, everything should be copyleft.

Buying licenses is never ethical. Buying the actual stuff, yeah, it is.

GOG (and other DRM-Free stores) are definitely exceptions to this rule though. Even though you are technically buying a license, the games you buy are effectively owned.

That’s what I thought until I tried it. Bought a game only to find out it was not for me. I’d bought it that day, played 30 mins, initiated refund. Steam denied refund, I think because I was on a VPN. $30 I won’t get back…

Less likely to buy stuff now without trying it first. Not like I have it to spare anymore these days 🤷‍♀️

i think it depends. i think it’s always ethical to pirate a game by a big company, but probably not from an indie developer. i’m not gonna stop you though

That's the opinion of the instance I'm on, so I can't well disagree with you here. However, my wife is an artist, so I might have some bias in saying I think some things are worth paying for. I pay for Apple Music. I also have offline copies of everything I listen to. I mean, I'm paying for it. I'm paying a lot for it. But I stand by what I said, if paying for it doesn't mean you get to keep it, not paying for it and having it isn't theft. Except I do both. I pay for it and I have it.

I'm an artist too, I'm music producer 😅

Ethics are a construct

Honestly with the quality a lot of games are released with, and the state they often are in, considering also the ludicrous costs of purchase (and you don’t actually own >90% of these purchases), for me it’s completely ethical. In that quite a lot of these people have lost the plot, we are in arguably late stage capitalism, and it’s almost a necessity anymore to test things before purchase. Don’t part with your hard earned money before you know for a fact what you are purchasing.

My two cents.

In general, big pirates are also big spenders in an industry.