Question: ![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z3v19.jpg)

There's been a lot of talk recently about what it means to support piracy and pirated games. A very recent example is [this question](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/127918/why-cant-i-harvest-blood-for-discerning-the-transmundane), in which a user asks a question that turns out to be a valid problem for a legitimate copy of the game, but in which he admitted in the comments that he's using a pirated version.

Even after it was clear that this problem exists in non-pirated copies, the question was still closed due to the mention of piracy.

Is the simple mention of piracy enough? Does the question need to be more intrinsically tied up with piracy? Where do we draw the line?

Answer: 
When I think of the "no piracy" policy, I think of avoiding situations where we're suggesting an illegal or questionably legal activity to further another illegal or questionably legal activity. 

We *close questions to prevent answers -* in this case, the "evil" of the answer is the furtherance of this illegal activity. I have no issues with this and support it as a policy. 

If there's a question, and the "piracy" is either implied, suggested, or otherwise suspected, I tend to view it through the lens of whether or not other people could be legitimately in this situation. After all, DRM issues and anti-piracy checks *can* occur to legitimate buyers, and glitches arise in all games regardless of how they were acquired. 

If I can either assume good faith or cross out the irrelevant portions of the question, I suggest we proceed without closing. Especially in cases where it's up to the community to judge the actions and intentions of the asker beyond what's present in the question, I'm inclined to let things pass. However, if the piracy and the question's issue are intertwined and inseparable, and valid answers will only condone further bad acts, then close.

If we take a look at a similar situation where, say, a user is leaving good answers but then going on a curse-filled litany at the end of every answer, we would probably edit the curses out, and leave the answers as is. Then we'd deal with the user's behavioral issue separately from the post. 

If we close valid questions on the basis that piracy is tangential to the asker's situation, we are punishing the user *by proxy* by punishing the question. "You're a pirate, evildoer, and therefore unworthy of an answer to your question, no matter how valid the question is." I really kind of hate punishing users by proxy, as I don't think it works well and it causes all sorts of issues. 

Instead, perhaps we should punish the user directly for their misdeeds, and allow the question to stand - that way, the benefit for the answer is reaped by all, while the punishment for the negative activity is felt directly by the user.
In general, the pirated version of a game really is a different game from the "public" one.

* The public version gets updates, the pirated usually doesn't.
* The public version integrates with Steam, Origin and pals, the pirated thinks it does but it doesn't.
* The public version passes any internal anti-piracy checks, the pirated doesn't and may have "[extra](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDKguXtrSxU) [super](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fI6cVBD9Ok)-[special](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZinR10DC3-Q&t=10) [seriously](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91q5BtlxK0) [explosive](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA2pJeuz7IQ) [features](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmyoV1bkXNI)" as a result.
* The public version can play in MP, the pirated doesn't.
* The public version is one and only one, while multiple different pirated versions of one game can be published, and the user probably doesn't know what version they've got (at best we'll get "uh, it's the one with the most active torrents")
* We explicitly chose not to support pirated versions of a game, and all of the variables they introduce.

For this reason, the asker may not be helped by an answer that is otherwise correct. This is a problem because:

* The asker is the one and only person who gets to accept an answer
* The asker doesn't have the version of the game we support and answer to to check if the answer works or not

At the end of the day, we aren't going to run out of question numbers. If the question also applies to legitimate customers of the game, let *them* ask instead. Let them get the reputation from the question; let them exercise the duty of accepting an answer; let them get in touch with answerers, regardless of reputation, with the comment area.

Sure, we *can* make exceptions to these rules where it makes sense, and my close vote was just a regular user's 5th close vote. But this is an area where I'm a little less lenient than usual. :)