Did you actually read what you've quoted or did you just copy-paste your standard anti-piracy response.

Piracy does not=stealing...just to be technically correct. It's more akin to replicating one's stuff and keeping the copies while the owner still has the originals, in your example.

(Disclaimer: By saying this I am not trying to support piracy)

Me too, but the biggest reasons as why I personally don't pirate (or try the game before buying) any more / much is;

for one I'm older and don't exactly play so often like I used to. The backlog I have is more than enough.

I'm not exactly fond of mega games and downloading something that big and it turns out to be crap is not fun without any support. Did that with the first reincarnation of Wolfenstein (was it old blood?). Had a major bug 1/3 in and I decided to delete the whole thing. I am still waiting for it to come to GOG though...

I'm older and tired of crap (which most games are today). I know what I want and what I stand for.

And lastly, I'm also more aware of who actually deserves my money. Those who promise too much usually don't deliver at all (Star Citizen f.ex, luckily I never gave them my money). CDPR are one of the few I not only want to give my money for support, but I also trust them (which today is VITAL in my opinion). I mean, what GOG/CDPR have done for the gaming world as a whole and stood for those values (mostly, at night) is simply not something we should take lightly.

It's almost akin to something like Musks "special, but relative affairs". We can debate all we want and hate him for his faults, but the fact is, progress on the electric car and rocket design would have been almost halted by another decade without him. How about thanks to the Raspberry Pi Foundation for the tiny computer revolution that spawned after the first board?

The list goes on - but we as consumers/gamers would be FAR worse off if CDPR/GOG more or less were as anti-consumer as the rest.

Enemy of the Players - A Disconnect Between Publishers and Reality

I have a backlog but I still collect old games and some new games of favorite genres/series/etc.

I also have goodish internet so buying/playing big games is ok usually, and I can filter through the crap of today(and let's be honest the past has just as much trash games and shovelware) to find the gems.

To be honest.
Most games that are released on steam with or without DRM are pirated within the first 24h (if there is any interest for those games).
The only exeption we have seen so far were the Denuvo protected games. More or less a protection for the DRM copy protection.
But these days those games hold out a few days.

Everybody who tells you a copy protection or DRM system will protect your game from piracy is an idiot or simply does lie to you.
Most of the time the system is intended to protect the hot sale phase of the first few weeks. And most DRM-Systems fail at this point.

So far allways on with a lot of data exchange between client and server has been proven to be the most successfull. But with all those freeshards, you can find for most MMOs, even this system got its limits.

So, will Cyberpunk be pirated instandly? It will, like every other game out there.
But they don't waste time and money on a copy protection, that won't last long anyway and can cause a bunch of problems.

If the content is good enough, you will get everybody who is willing to pay money at some point in time (and their price).
The hardcore "i want to pirate everything" are lost anyway.

It will be pirated the same way like any other popular game release, adding a DRM you would only be delaying the inevitable. Furthermore the only people that will suffer are the legit customers, pirates will simply wait for the crackers to release the cracked version and then bask in hassle free gaming.

For the record the new Total War game uses the latest Denuvo 6.0 and has also been cracked a month and a half later. Pirates simply waited for the game to be cracked and still got to play the full game for free. Meanwhile the customers get to play a crippled versions they paid for.

Hehe, absolutely, but in those days it was harder to come by games at all. Mostly we turned to friends, magazines or a retail store (or BBS or early internet for those few who had those). There were a lot of demos/sharewares floating around, which also depended on how much people liked them in order to be distributed. Lemmings, DN and Doom are perfect examples.

It's only, say 2000+ there were easier to find all/more of those games; the good, bad and the truly ugly. And that's largely thanks to modern "archivers" :D

I'm not ashamed for admitting (yet again) that I wholeheartedly support such archives/archivers, but profiting for each games like some do is something I do not support.

I think instead of wasting few hundred thousand dollars(or millions, I have no idea how much it cost) on Denuvo protection for the first month, it would be a better business strategy to simply pay few dozen popular Twitch streamers and Youtubers to keep playing the game after release. This way they can easily advertise to millions. They will already do it for free on release, since the game is already hyped into oblivion, but they could push them for an extra week or two.

Could I ask, how are the deals better when a pirate can plunder and rob and get their booty for zilch?

Four days, I guess that was a waste of time asking the mod.

Easier downloads for less popular or older games, less risk of viruses, more consistent availability of patches, support, achievements and other community features some people love, no VPN bill to hide your shenanigans and lastly the feeling you're supporting good developers. Those are the things that stop people from pirating.

You're never going to win the "be a good person" argument because the vast majority don't care, sad as that is. You're also never going to win the keep-away race, because unless governments start really taking control of the internet it's just an unwinnable exercise in futility. So the list above is all they have to work with.

Hmmm it might be within the first few days. Other places may wait a week before doing anything.

But those who are going to buy it will buy it, and those who aren't won't, and those who are impressed enough with the game will become buyers. Can't really get around that.

But there's more then one reason and it's different for everyone.

Like Devil's Advocate mentioned, it's all those things. Except for viruses. Since good pirate-trackers have generals rules how to post a torrent and do monitor and check them before they become available for download.

For me, I buy games to support good devs. Love achievements as well. Achievements fight piracy more then DRM! lol

There's also the community as well. Like GOG/Steam friends and all that.

Updates and patches could be quite annoying for a pirate. Especially if the game is huge and one have to re-download the whole game each time and reinstall it.

In the end of the day, different people pirate games for different reasons.

Best countermeasure: from us: buy the effin game, from CDPR: make a great game. It's that simple.

Someone actually hijacked a truck full of game copies (GTA V CMIIW) and try to sell it. Now Cyberpunk maybe popular but I don't think it's on GTA V popular yet.

Australia has blocked all torrent sites but a simple VPN nullifies that. I don't think nowadays they put viruses in them as the security is too good and picks them up,pretty slickety slick. As for the other little surprises like updates and only older games, well that's incorrect.