> Video game pirating was mostly killed by viruses. At one point it was too just too risky.

It wasn’t, teenagers don’t give a shit, and torrent sites like Piratebay had trusted uploaders (green/pink skull) and comments.

Steam sucked initially but it kept increasing its value add (cloud saves / settings sync, easy voice chat before Discord, Steam Workshop for mods, etc) and simultaneously the sales got better and better.

Why pirate a game when you can wait a couple of months to buy it for 66% off, niceties included.

You probably need a seedbox + private trackers for the best pirating experience. If you play <5 games a year, probably not worth it.

I'm thinking more like a vm/container.

Even for non pirated content, I built a dedicated gaming pc. Kernel level anti cheat is becoming more prolific and it is impossible for me to trust the code quality going into those. Even games are not immune to ad tech revenue and are sending system telemetry to their servers.

Is this a joke? I don't see it being any less prevalent than at any time in the past. There are plenty of trustworthy sites and plenty of people know about them. It's all over Reddit for anybody who's interested and it doesn't take a rocket scientist. It's easier now than it's ever been before.

Wasn't meant as a joke, thanks for the response. I honestly thought it so. Now I know..