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: 
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. :)
[SE's policy is to not dictate to us how to handle piracy, so studiously avoiding even the possibility of being involved in helping someone using a pirated game isn't *our* concern.](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/10889506#10889506) That means my concerns about exposure to liability aren't relevant – SE has lawyers (while I don't) and have presumably consulted them and made an informed policy about how to handle this. If they're not worried, then I'm not worried.

(I would delete this answer normally since now it doesn't address the question, but I'll leave it for those who can't see deleted posts and their comments.)

We expose the company that runs the SE network to legal liability internationally if we knowingly leave open a question about pirated content. It is not actually known if doing this *is* illegal of us, but it is not worth out time or the company's money to hash this out with a day (months) in court in potentially many jurisdictions.

If a question is about a pirated game, we must close it or risk financially ruining all of SE. Piracy-related questions, with any smidge of piratical activity in the question, are off topic for good reason. We have zero wiggle room to hash out here.

Unless we want to bring in SE's legal council, of course. I don't think that's a good idea though.