Heres a weirder one no one else has mentioned yet: I’ve heard art described as a way to express and emotion, and I really felt that with Hotline Miami. Its not done through the story or setting (in fact, the intentional ignorance there adds to it) but rather the contrest between the hyper-violent trance as you play through a level, and then the sudden cut of the music as you quietly walk past the mountains of bloodied corpses back to your car. I feel that shift, when you first notice it, really emphasises the pointless brutally of it far more so than many much more heavy-handed attempts in other games.

Far too coherent. There isn’t even any random tangents.

Stardew Valley is a good one, but I definately wouldn’t consider Terraria casual or low-stress.

Except you’ve given no reason you shouldn’t play those games, nor any reason to think that everyone can afford the games they play and instead resorted to personal attacks because I think its not unreasonable to play a game for free when the publisher asks for a month’s salary for it (or for part of it). You’re ignoring all the points I put forward, and examples I give showing that people can’t afford the access price and just declaring everyone entitled for wanting media. But no, you’re right, all these poor people are just entitled, anyone who doesn’t have money to pay the asking price should stop thinking they’re better than these poor, poor investment companies and just accept that some culture just isn’t for poors like them.

You’re completely ignoring the point. Those games often are available, just not in the same form, or from the original developers. You either buy a switch and play a locked down, emulated version, or you buy a used copy for a fortune. Either way, the original Developers get nothing. Similarly, you might want to have your own copy of a game, rather than a rental than can be taken away or destroyed at any time for any reason. You can count that as “not legally available”, sure, but at that point you’re arguing its fine to pirate almost anything released in the last decade - anything older than that also doesn’t support your argument unless its a small indie studio that hasn’t been bought out, since devs are usually laid off or forced to move. Even ignoring that, which is relavent, you’re ignoring the fact that games now often cost well over a hundred dollars to get the complete game, during an economic crisis. I can get a Steam Deck right now for the price of Lego 2K Drive (with the missing content), the Sims 4 with a couple a DLC items, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Even as someone who is in a pretty good position financialy, I can’t justify buying games like this, nonetheless if I had a rougher start or was in a higher cost-of-living area. Look at areas where income is lower and it becomes even more apparent. Theres a reason places like Brasil, Russia, and Eastern Europe are known for piracy and Canada or Western Europe are not. Its also why people tend to pirate a lot as a teenager but not as an adult. When an individual has money (and the official version isn’t actively trying to screw over the customer) they are willing to pay for the product. Once people are adults, or when they’re given access to games within a price they can afford (IE regional pricing) they’ll start actually paying. These options wouldn’t exist if that weren’t the case. On the other hand, when the cost of living is skyrocketing, as it is now, and people are struggling to even afford food and rent, they won’t chose to spend all their rent money buying Sims DLC and will simply pirate it.

The reality is that most digital piracy is perpetuated by people who are well-off and have lots of tech, access to broadband internet, and high-end gaming computers.

Yes, piracy is for rich people who should just be buying games. Thats why we only see it in places like Western Europe and North America, whereas places like Brazil and Russia just buy all their games. Thats why in these places, they have N64s in every house to support companies making great games like Rareware, unlike filfthy pirates in the rich countries. If the rich first-worlders would stop being greedy and just pony up a few hundred in microtransactions a month during this economic crisis, then publishers wouldn’t have to remove games from your library as often.

Yes they should. Unfortunately, we live in a very unequal world, so a lot of people don’t have any way to reward artists for their work. In those cases, the most they can give is attention and word-of-mouth advertising. Often, thats better than buying it, considering how frequently you have corporate owners who force the artists out and/or destroy the game shortly after its published. At least in those cases, the artist gets something rather than it all going to an already-rich investor.

But it doesn’t cost their time and effort. Time and effort has already been spent, and as a result, the media exists. Someone playing a copy of the game has no effect on the developer (except maybe advertising).

Skibidi Toilet is a serious of SFM shorts that became popular with young kids. Think in the same vein as the weird flash videos or early SFM videos that were popular with young kids 10-15 years ago. “Skibidi” doesn’t mean anything and is just taken from that.