That's actually the exact reason why I have Saints Row 2 for pc at the moment, it's only out on the 30th and I just couldn't wait to play it. Don't worry though I plan on buying it, I always have to have a physical copy with manual.

This kind of thinking is what makes valve's digital distribution service so successful.

There are other issues of overpricing products and lackluster testability. Honestly, when was the last time you played a legitimate demo for a game? If the game even gets a demo its usually several months after release. Most people will go out and pay $50 for a Blizzard game because they know they'll be getting a quality product, but I doubt that is the same for many other games and/or companies. I'd like to see more "rehash" (Vegas 2 comes to mind) games being priced in the $20-30 range. And any new IP deserves legitimate demo support.

The people who will never buy a product are not stealing money from your pocket, so doing anything to prevent what they are doing is a waste of everyones time. What developers need to do is start marketing better to the people who are pirating software that under different conditions they would purchase. The above article mentions one such situation, but there are others such as the ones I stated.

Back in the day you never purchased a game unless you knew what you were getting into: that's why the shareware market was so big. I'm not suggesting we go back to shareware, but allowing gamers to get an idea if something is worth buying outside of reviews, which are usually skewed anyways (with the exception of this site, which is why I frequent it for my news and reviews) does not give people a good idea if a product is worth their money.

And quite honestly, I haven't played many games of late that were worth the price on the box. The Witcher was probably the last game I actually purchased that I felt like I got my money's worth.

I think steam's dynamic pricing also has something to do with it. They will appropriately price a game that comes out, and they will appropriately lower the price on that game after its been out for a while. I think a perfect example is orange box, and how its price was systematically lowered, which made it more attractive to gamers who were only slightly interested in it before.

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