[frightlever]

Meh. Hardcore pirates don't buy games anyway. Casual piracy, if anything, can help a game's popularity by spreading the word. How many reading here pirated IV and either went on to buy a legit copy of it or V when it came out? I read an article somewhere years back that suggested for every legitimate copy of SEIV there were at least 5 pirate copies in use. (and to avoid the inevitable I bought my copy of SEIV from a specialist UK wargaming store for about the equivalent of $90 at the time having got hooked on the demo.)

The truth is publishers are probably the biggest cause of independent developers going out of business so if there's the need for a childish tirade perhaps that's where it should be getting directed. (and for what it's worth as far as I can see Shrapnel isn't a bad publisher. Or Stardock or, for that matter, Steam.)