Now what does that have to do with anything? If you really must know I own my house, pay my own bills, and have zero debt.

No matter which way you want to sugar coat it, pirating is stealing. There's simply no argument that can change that fact. Just because one pirate buys a copy doesn't mean they all do and there lies the problem with it. Given the example, only 5 of 12 people on the pirated LAN copy bought the game. That's not even 50%.

I'll tell you this: pirates generally only buy games which they feel are worth their money. That is, games with a fun multiplayer component. It is a huge selling point, even for people who don't pirate, and it is one of the only things that will make a long-time pirate buy a game.

The multiplayer component adds more replayability than anyone could ever hope to achieve with single player, and that is what really makes the purchase worth it.

OP is simply saying that, if Stardock & GPG offered this as a free download and charged for the multiplayer key, they would effectively be eliminating all piracy, and still maintain the main (and only?) selling point of the game. They would also expose the game to a large audience of anti-piracy zealots who refuse to pirate to try, but are still on the fence about this game, so they choose not to buy it.

You will find that many pirates, much like the OP, pirated the game because they were on the fence, and then promptly decided to buy it because they thought it was worth it. The same will happen with what OP suggests, only on a much larger scale.

Indeed there are pirates who refuse to buy a game, but there's also a large amount of pirates who are just out there to try a game. The economically conscious pirate, if you will. See, these are the same people which will do extensive research on a TV before making the purchase. Many of the people who just see the game and decide to buy it are the impulse buyers which look at the screen size, the brand and the screen tech (TFT, IPS, VA)  (the graphics are nice, the idea is nice, GPG is good) and buy the TV.

"Don't judge a book by its cover." - Pirate-to-try pirates want to read the first few pages before buying the book, but you just look at the title, the author and the cover picture and purchase it. It is a difference in personality, not ideology.

Comanoodle, this is the section of you wall of text that i will choose to reply to, because it is the ESSENCE of all pirate justification and it is your main point of your reply.

What you just described is a DEMO (you know, short for demonstration).  They exist for ALL P.C titles, EVEN if you have to wait (God forbid!).

To correct your metaphor, you would have to say something along the lines of:
Pirates want to read the first few pages before buying the book, so they steal it.  Upon completing the book, the pirate could then choose to discard it, return it, or even consider paying for the stolen merchandise!  I ask, what gives YOU the right to do this?

Why should anybody have this right?  It tramples and spits on all work put into creating anything, any product.  Consider the gears and energy that go into a pot to create something desirable-- but if people just take and don't give back, why create something of quality?  This is the reason why pirating not only hurts the Devs, but also fellow gamers-- because pirating is always either on a increase or decrease, and signs are showing a wide-spread increase in people willing to take the "risk" and brag about it!  If pirating is increasing, there is an environment for "shovelware" to be created more and more- that people will not be willing to take chances on new games that will enhance the field of gaming.

So stop, pirates! STOP.

I agree with the OP! I too pirated the game and I really enjoyed it. This was a massive shock to me because I've been deploring it to just about every gamer I know since its conception (I hated the way it looked over videos; it looked tedious and pointless). But I pirated it (just to confirm my suspicions) and really loved it! It's like UT with swords! As of last night I got hold of a legitimate Digital Download and voila! I'm part of the community.

Been fun so far!

Uhh.. shut your mouth.  Legal action is not going to solve anything.  You are just causing grief to some poor bastard who might just have enough to get by.  I am sure many people pirate games and buy them (Actually.. I am 100% sure it happens all the time).  People who pirate will pirate people who buy will buy.  Just let it be.  Going after pirates is just a waste of money, time and resources and the extra expenditure is not going to get you anymore money.  You will also get bad publicity and eventually people will boycott the company.  Take a look of the SPORE fiasco (The ratings in Amazon) or what happened with SCO (Suing for no reason..).  One other thing.. I  buy games (I have over 200 games in my collection), and there is nothing that pisses me off more than a draconian DRM or a damn system which only allows me to install my game 5 times (bioshock and spore).  I threw spore away (piece of crap game) and stopped playing bioshock.   Demigod is a good game and the people working on demigod are also knowledgeable people who understand the business.