Btw – have you considered using something like PaidByCash.com or some or other pre-paid cards? I believe they might be available for those without CC or bank info.

@swordfish: Heh, WC3 thing… sometimes things can go this way. Although… if you’d heard only about WoW, do you think it would have been the same situation? ;)

@centurion, well yes… although reading/seeing/hearing can never beat actual playing (although there might be demos available)

Fast forward a few years. 16 or 17 years old, I’ve gotten a car, found a job, and actually have money to spend. I’ve finally made the jump into the modern age of computing, and the very first game I purchase legally is Starcraft. And then I bought the expansion pack. My copy of Starcraft gets stolen…oh well.

A few months later, I defy the odds and actually purchase another game legally: Warcraft 3, and then the expansion pack. God I love this game.

I let a friend borrow my WC3 CD so he can play single-player on his PC. He likes it so much that he purchases the game so we can play together online.

Fast-forward a few more years to the present. WC3 is old, I’ve kind of grown out of gaming. What’s this? World of Warcraft?! OMGWTFBBQ I MUST HAVE! 1 year out of my life down the drain (and well worth it!). I get all my buddies hooked on it and the epidemic iterates several times.

So in short, if I had never pirated WC1 and WC2, I never would have purchased Starcraft+expansion, Warcraft 3+expansion, or World of Warcraft + 1 year subscription, my friend would have never bought Warcraft 3, and at least 10 people I know would have never purchased WoW.

Now if I could reclaim the countless hours I’ve spent playing these games.