Just adding my own anecdote here, so that you can add one more "person I know" (even though you don't know me, you might, after this post, know of me as a perso

Just adding my own anecdote here, so that you can add one more "person I know" (even though you don't know me, you might, after this post, know of me as a person) to the list of those who have pirated specifically as a "try before you buy" method. I have been burned too many times by games that simply do not run on my hardware despite meeting the minimum specs for the game. Modern platforms like Steam may allow for refunds, but this is a relatively new thing. Shareware and demos are a fantastic thing for someone like me, but these mostly seem to have gone away in favor of Let's Play and other videos of gameplay, which does nothing to help me determine if I can actually play the game.