My issue is the license part. If I can’t own the installer files then it really doesn’t seem right anyways.
No, buying a license is never ethical.
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.
If it’s unethical to pirate, you can assuage your guilt by buying the thing after the fact, or deciding you were never gonna buy it anyway. If you don’t think it’s unethical to pirate, then it’s not an issue.
As to what I believe… if buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.
Based.
Copyright should be illegal also, everything should be copyleft.
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 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
Maybe slightly off-topic, I just want to remind that Denuvo used pirated (personal licence) VMProtect in their commercial product.
Is it ethical to pirate a game
Yes.
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.
