Feel compelled to say something on that post. Read almost everything (there is a lot in here) and I feel in need to say something.
Want to remark the good point about world piracy, never been much to asia but I have friends there, so I know it is like that. Also been lots of time in South America and you can buy anything for probably less than 5 bucks and it is almost considered legal business. The point to see is that in these country 30$ means probably a month of food (ok let me exagerate to make my point or translate that to africa)
Secondly, I agree with BW comment on self responsiblity. Piracy is your responsability. If you like it, buy it else it will never happen again. This is why I am against anti piracy tricks which are all more or less unfair to real customers and totally ineficient to pirates. (Agree also with the comment about the diference between pirates and thieves. Even if not accepting the zero pirated copy would have accounted for one more sale, piracy is not depriving you of something, it is at the most preventing you to gain further).
I have played on some pirated games myself. Generally never finished them because they were bad. I have also bought quite a lots of game and did not even need to grab the demo of Eschalon, just by reading the forum, I knew I would love it and would support BW for taking the risk of doint it. I proud myself to be in the first batch of buyers and I will also buy again the Linux version as soon as it will be available.
The point I want to make is that if I could pay some 60€ games that I did never finished for which more than half the amount was lost on marketing, selling channels and so on why not buy twice a 30$ game for which I know probably 90% + will go directly in BW pocket.
As a final word here, I would like to recommend to BW not to lose time and energy on anti-piracy methods. You are doing a great game, you are giving an hell of a good attention to your gamer community, you will put just enough energy in merch and marketing to be visible in the internet bush and the gamer community will help raising sale, if only because some of us want to finish the trilogy...
Thanks again and back to my amulet quest (I found out that I am a slow gamer when I see people having already finished twice or more the game)
Gardez suffisament d'humour pour ne pas perdre l'esprit au nom de la raison.
Ama la realidad que construyes y ni aun la muerte detendra tu paso.