Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Cannot speak for anyone else, but it depends on his badly I want it and whether or not I am willing to give money to said compant/person/whatever.

Is it an old out of print game that suddenly had prices jacked up 500% by scalpers/scammers? It ain't worth me trying to find a ROM if the sources I like don't have it, nor buying it.

Is it from some indie dev/devs that probably don't have the financial stability to afford everyone pirating their game? I'm more likely to buy if I can afford.

Did a large company like Sintendo, Activision, etcetera, make it? For older titles, I am likely to buy if it's a low enough price and I have a real interest in it. Newer titles? I usually don't bother because the quality for most triple AAA studios isn't up to par for me since I don't like buying reskins of the same game with somehow less of the basic features available unless you pay.

Side note: looking forward to Black Ops 99 where you have to pay $9.99 per pixel to be able to see the screen as you play and still have people buy the game, willing to pay for every pixel... only to find out the game servers are constantly offline for an online only experience they don't get to play and by purchasing the game you somehow agreed to give Activision access to your bank account to do as they please with that money.

Edit:

For shows and movies, if I can't easily find it, I don't bother because it's a much bigger hassle than video game piracy. Same with books.