Let me offer an unique perspective on pirated games.
When I was young I lived in Yugoslavia. It was impossible to buy any sort of legal software at that time (except those made in our country) and Amiga and Atari appeared just before the war, so the only way you could have a computer was if it was imported (actually smuggled) from Italy, Austria or Germany.
Piracy had a status of (almost) legitimate business because there were no laws about it. We even had pirates paid ads on covers of computer magazines. All reviews were based on pirated software, obviously. Before you ask+, these magazines were pretty professional and hardcore. Tips for programming in Assembler, schematics, microprocessor programming guides etc. I'd say that from 1990s here in Croatia were went back to stone age, at least as far as computer sciences are concerned.
I attached a page from "do it yourself" section from one of these magazines I found on the web. Pretty cool stuff.