Lol man I generally agree with the hive mind, but on this particular point I never will. With the singular exception being a complete lack of availability, I will always view pirates as being cheapskates that are totally cool with theft. Try to justify it all you like, in the end you are receiving a product without paying for it. Just admit what you're doing.
I'm actually more likely to buy it if it's good and I can see myself playing it a lot. The last game I did this with was No Man's Sky on launch and I'm glad I didn't pay for the clusterfuck that originally was. I've since bought the game for full retail price twice.
It's literally not theft. There are other reasons why I disagree with you, but that's the big one that really takes the weight out of your argument. The owner is deprived of nothing.
As long as you admit that selling a game that doesn't work is also stealing money. They're selling an incomplete game for the price of a complete game.
No I will not, because it is not. If you are unable to wait until feedback has returned on a game and you happen to be unhappy with the quality of the product then the only thing you are a victim of is your own stupidity. Do you think non-extended cut films are theft as well?
False equivalence there my dude. The games industry, and especially Bethesda, have earned themselves a strong reputation for releasing basically unplayable clusterfucks time after time because their management choose to push unfinished products to the market to capitalize on hype at the expense of the consumer. The consumer has every right to be wary and cautious with these companies and the product they release.
With movies, what you are basically getting is the final product, much like games used to be before updates could be pushed as patches over the internet for them. Imagine going to see a movie and the actors start T posing, you can see camera men and the director on the side of the set, then the movie projector just crashes and you don't get to see the rest? That's how bad Bethesda and major AAA games have been over the last several years.
If I can't afford it, I should be proud of stealing it.
This escapes me. If you want to be a graphic designer and everyone uses Photoshop, so you pirate it to get experience so you can get a job because nobody cares that you're a GIMP expert, okay. I get that. In this case, vote with your wallet. Play a different game. It's not the 1980s. We have too many great options.
Most of us are cheapskates that take advantage of the law. At least in the US you are allowed to try out the software for free for 30 days, and you buy if it's worth the $$$, delete if not.