It seems like alot of people here admits that they have or had a pirated version of Demigod. Is it because they are in some sort of need to tell it i don't know, but just for the record, if you download a pirated version of a game, like Demigod and go out to buy it a week after doesn't make it ok..
You seem to be under the illusion that pirates buy a game to make their original act of piracy "OK". This is just wrong. I pirate games because I'm a student with almost no money. If I pirate a game and it successfully holds my attention for more than two days I'll buy it. End of story. I've pirated every Total War and bought every one, same with the Fallout series and the same with The Elder Scrolls series and countless more. I see no reason why I should pay $40 for a game that's going to keep my attention for less than two days. Because the developers put effort into it? This is a fallacy. If you bought a candy bar from the store and found out that when you bit into the seemingly delicious chocolate it was in fact filled with puss would you think, "Hey! Someone put effort into making this so therefore they deserve my cash!" No, obviously you would not.
To counter your point on demos we'll use the same analogy. If you went into a store and they had a sales rep allowing people to sample a brand of candy for free, you did so and it was stunning, you then went and bought the candy and found it had been severely misrepresented and it was actually full of puss would you say, "Hey! Someone put effort into making this so therefore they deserve my cash!" No, obviously you would not.
And herein lies the problem: the games industry pumps out several frankly terrible games for every one Sins of a Solar Empire, Demigod or Total War. The vast majority of this tripe is then released in demo format, but the demo so massively misrepresents the actual quality of the game that its just not worth playing (and this is on the presumption that there's a demo at all!) Piracy gives the consumer a recourse: now we can try the genuine game and see if it's worth buying. Yes, it's very very, oh so very sad for companies that produce inferior products but they've been screwing us with their terrible goods for years and now it's time they got screwed.
By downloading a pirated game you help the community of pirates, well you say you just won't share the files, but on some degree you will always share and/or help those pirate douchebags.
Clearly you've never heard of, or do not understand, Usenet. Besides, nearly all P2P applications have an option to "Share partially completed files". If you turn that off and refuse to set a shared folder you're sharing nothing.
Please stop pirating games, you are cheating the developers for alot of moeny even though you buy the game afterwards, poor companies
This is just plain incoherent, no two ways about it. It's like saying "You stole $20 from me then gave it back but I'm still at a loss!" it's just literally illogical.