As someone in the games industry let me toss my two cents in:
If you can't legally buy a game on a platform that is accessable anymore. Pirate that shit. Even if I made it I would rather you enjoy my shittiest work than it be forgotten. I even pirate stuff. If no one is selling it's the rights holders fault for leaving money on the table.
If you can buy it however, please consider doing so. It gives us job security, and when we have jobs we have money, and we have money we buy homes, cars, food, luxuries. That gives you all jobs selling, transporting, and manufacturing all that stuff. It also means we're not on welfare and wasting your tax dollars. Instead we're paying taxes, plus you get a cool thing. It's better for everyone, but I understand not everyone can afford to buy games willy nilly. If you want to play but you really can't afford it, pirate it. I'd rather my work enjoyed than a few extra dollars, but naturally I'd prefer both.
Now, this is where it gets complicated and I move from emotional beliefs to political and philosophical beliefs:
In every position in the industry I've been from tester, to developer, and as of today to producer, I support try before you buy piracy. I'd prefer you use just a demo to try if possible as it gives us some useful data to know what you fuckers like, but even if you pirate the game and play it all the way, if you enjoy or love it please just put it on a list of shit you pirated and liked and when you have some money buy a copy and leave a review, don't review and refund it though because that still fucks the devs.
See, unless we're totally indie, yeah, we're "already paid to make it", but the likelihood of us being able to make another game is dependent on you guys buying it. Many studios get a revenue cut on the lower end of the scale from their publisher, and partially fund the game, it's not all the publisher funding it. While first parties, AA and AAA tend to see all revenue go to publishers, and even that is quietly drying up in AA. Revenue cuts are pretty common. It's not just the executives getting fucked anymore.
Due to revenue cuts and depending on the deal not buying it means we don't actually get paid, since the entire industry is based around running in the red and building up debt in hopes of leaping into the black after release, if might not be the code monkey in debt, but the studio being in debt still means his ability to feed his family is on the line. Early Access is an attempt to drum up funds before the game is out to fuel development, but even then those guys are often in the red the whole time unless they are a break out Early Access release which avoids feature creeping too hard. As such that "pay" devs get from a publisher is more like a loan, and they want it back. Especially if a studio is a subsidiary, as if you are a subsidiary and you don't get sales on your games they liquidate your ass to make their money back.
For non-subsidiaries sales are the only things that count towards a studio being hired to make another game, and the only thing that counts towards them getting a revenue cut or (the incredibly shit) sales based bonuses, so a lack of sales fuck devs even if they were "already paid". They will lose job security and have to find new jobs if you take Jim's mentality. Fuck anyone who does something to fuck the livelihood of another, especially if you're just a fat bastard living off handouts.
As far as devs go, yeah we can find different jobs, but guess what fuckers. Chances are those jobs aren't McDonald's or Starbucks like a lot of people try to joke. No, they are jobs building big brother for Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, and if we are working elsewhere you don't get games, indie or otherwise. Personally, fuck building big brother I want to make games, however his construction often pays better than game dev, so I mean it when most of us are more interested in making a good game and having job security than the money. A lot of us are in the business of making cool shit for money, not just making money. That distinction is something a lot of YouTubers fail to pick up on.
That said, community reviews do get read and passed onto us for designing future releases so we do like to see them. Journalists are 50% hacks and 50% insightful cunts with obnoxious politics. So community reviews are more valuable for direction than ever. You know once we stop being defensive man babies over mean words. Reviews on places like Steam are seen before elsewhere, so those tend to be best, but a good review still helps. I'll forgive your piracy in return for a review.
Oh, and if you just pirate because you want free shit, yeah fuck you.
