Faithful: I would have to think the pirates did indeed hurt the company. However, restrictive DRM also hurt the company by having the game quality misunderstood.
They could have let the public know much sooner what was happening about such things as crashing when exiting a cave.
Finally, I think they were hurt by those that never bought the game (such as myself) due to the DRM used.
In fact and here is something to remember they never removed the DRM when the company went under. As far as I know it is still in the game in full force.
So much for the idea that companies will do the right thing if they are going to go under and create a patch to remove any DRM. I know they never promised it (again as far as I know), but it would have been the right tings to do for the people that bought the game.
Bottom line is they are not completely innocent in the process, but the pirates have a huge part in the problem. There will always be pirates and no DRM has worked so why put legitimate users through such troubles?

Crassmaster: If you're talking about Titan Quest, the DRM WAS removed from the game and it was removed quite some time ago.

CyPhErIoN: that's totally wrong. They had the problem that it leaked on torrentsites and 94-98% of the games played where illegal copies.
That's what ruined them. They even had a site up for 2 weeks where it clearly said : thank you pirates for our demise.
"quote :
One, there are other costs to piracy than just lost sales. For example, with TQ, the game was pirated and released on the nets before it hit stores. A lot of people are talking about how it crashes right when you come out of the first cave. There was a security check there.
So, before the game even comes out, we’ve got people bad-mouthing it because their pirated copies crash, even though a legitimate copy won’t. How many people decided to pick up the pirated version because it had this reputation and they didn’t want to risk buying something that didn’t work? Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy.
Let’s dig a little deeper there. So, if 90% of your audience is stealing your game, even if you got a little bit more, say 10% of that audience to change their ways and pony up, what’s the difference in income? Just about double.
If even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today. Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren’t so rampant on the PC. That’s a fact."

michaelleung: It's on Steam for prepurchase. Says it includes the editor.

Faithful: Then it should be on gog! Thanks for the info I was unaware of that.

michaelleung: It's on Steam for prepurchase. Says it includes the editor.

acare84: Demo, demo, demo. I need a demo first. :)

acare84: But, I want $2 discount too. :D

acare84: Demo, demo, demo. I need a demo first. :)