It’s similar with me. I have pirated games starting with my Amiga 500 in the early 90s, and still pirate today. But I am also one of the best costumers the game industry has (except in the categories MTX and cash-grab DLC, and I am very careful with early access titles). I own around 2500 games legit (not counting Systems other than PC), and nearly all of those games started as a pirated copy. Without pirating I would never be able to decide which games are worth my money and time.
If a game isn’t well rated, I won’t pirate it, and if it can’t hold my attention, I delete it. If it’s my cup of tea, I wait until the price point is where I perceive it as fair for the offering. That can be full price on day one too if is good! BG3, Nier Automata, Witchfire, Prey 2016 and a very long list of other games all got what they asked for.
If I see that a game is flawed, but the devs are actively working on making their game as good as it deserves to be (it helps if they have a good track record), I also tend to pay close to full price. If fixes come slowly or erratically, or they abandoned a game in an unfinished state before, I only buy after it is fixed, heavily discounted, or not at all.
It’s similar with me. I have pirated games starting with my Amiga 500 in the early 90s, and still pirate today. But I am also one of the best costumers the game industry has (except in the categories MTX and cash-grab DLC, and I am very careful with early access titles). I own around 2500 games legit (not counting Systems other than PC), and nearly all of those games started as a pirated copy. Without pirating I would never be able to decide which games are worth my money and time.
If a game isn’t well rated, I won’t pirate it, and if it can’t hold my attention, I delete it. If it’s my cup of tea, I wait until the price point is where I perceive it as fair for the offering. That can be full price on day one too if is good! BG3, Nier Automata, Witchfire, Prey 2016 and a very long list of other games all got what they asked for.
If I see that a game is flawed, but the devs are actively working on making their game as good as it deserves to be (it helps if they have a good track record), I also tend to pay close to full price. If fixes come slowly or erratically, or they abandoned a game in an unfinished state before, I only buy after it is fixed, heavily discounted, or not at all.