Same. The day games start introducing arbitrary resolution limits based on my OS or browser choice, the way streaming sites do, is the day I'll start pirating games.
Piracy, for me, is a matter of functionality, not price.
I am with you. It's all a matter of convenience to me.
Steam, does a pretty good job of what it does. As does GOG.
Now- EA/UBI can suck a big fat one.... but, steam/gog are good so far.
Regarding media, I am with you 100%. It's strictly a matter of convenience. Back in the 20-teens, I didn't even have a plex server running, as netflix was able to handle the majority of my media needs.
When, every fucking network created their own streaming service, and partitioned all of the media behind their own subscriptions, I said fuck that. The collection of linux ISOs keeps growing now.
When it is easier for me to use plex to streaming my Linux ISOs, rather then to use a paid service- THAT is the problem. And, that is why they can get my middle finger.
Maybe I'm wrong but isn't there a drm free version of baldurs gate on GOG? Out of all the games to pirate this isn't the one. I get that not everyone can afford it but I suspect a lot of people who do, can.
How is this being upvoted? Baldurs Gate 3 is a new release. In fact it's so new that I think this is literally part of their marketing campaign, and good on them because the game looks amazing!
All storefronts have tons of them, more games then you'll have the time to play in your lifetime. Heck, Epic's freebies that have DRM are the exception, that's at least one DRM free game a week right there and let me tell you bud, as you grow older you don't have the time to finish a game a week!
Meh, your loss, use a throwaway email and connect using the VPN you probably already use and you don't need to worry about viruses and shit like you would when pirating and the game updates itself when updates are available and the devs actually receive money from Epic.
I don't play games and I don't use expensive software (ok, beside Windows and Office). Mostly I don't use my computer when I am not at work. I have other hobbies and I have enough of computer at work (I am a software developer). I only pirate movies and tv shows. I don't even pirate music. I just use YouTube music, with turkish family account (it's the cheapest, around 1,20€ - 1,80€ per month for 6 accounts). I was using Netflix, but since they started blocking account sharing I stopped using Netflix. It's too pricey for how much I watch movies and tv shows. For Windows I usually download iso from microsoft, and find activator on mydigitallife forum. If I need to download some software (like Office for example) from some torrent tracker, I am lucky we have local private tracker that is known and used by whole country.
I don't even use Microsoft Office anymore after the last Medusa bug in msdt that compromised computers without opening the virus files. LibreOffice ftw. I miss nothing. Much safer.
When I'm on Linux (most of the time), I'm using Libre Office, but sometimes I have to open some word document in Microsoft Office, because Libre Office don't open it correctly.