Piracy is a complex problem without easy solutions. In the UK, a group of game publishers have banded together to intimidate pirates into coughing up cash or heading to court. This RIAA-style tactic, targeting the end user, has proven unpopular and unprofitable for the music industry in the United States and has paid mixed dividends at best. Peter Moore, the head of EA Sports, is openly critical of this approach, while id Software's Todd Hollenshead actually thinks piracy is a "benefit" to PC hardware manufacturers. Hal Halpin, the head of the Entertainment Consumer Association, has yet to take a stand one way or the other. Welcome to the quagmire of gaming piracy.

Peter Moore is blunt. "If we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers," he told Eurogamer. "Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."

Moore takes piracy seriously, but doesn't have many ideas for an effective weapon against it. He does, however, know what he doesn't like. "I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer. Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers," Moore said. "I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money. I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."

EA actually has some plans in that direction, including free, microtransaction-based games like Battlefield Heroes and of course MMOs like Warhammer Online, games that are functionally impervious to piracy.

The question is: do PC users see the ability to pirate games as a reason to choose that platform for gaming? That's a very debatable position, but id Software's Todd Hollenshead seems to think that hardware companies don't mind piracy all that much. "I think that there's been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content—even if you're supposed to pay for it on PCs—is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games," he told GamesIndustry.

There is perhaps some truth to this assertion: gamers may not mind spending top-dollar on the best components if they think they can get all the content they want for free.

One important contact we wanted to speak to for this story was Hal Halpin, the founder of the ECA—an advocacy group that stands up for the rights of gamers. With publishers in the UK beginning to threaten users, and the ESA hiring executives from the RIAA, surely he would have some thoughts on what this could mean for American gamers in the future. Unfortunately, his reply to Ars was brief, and somewhat curt. " Unfortunately, ECA has yet to take a public position on piracy, which is itself a very complex and encompassing issue. As for the ESA, we cannot comment on their hiring practices or policies." This is a disappointing answer from an important figure in gaming.

These attitudes and insights show just how divisive, but important, the issue of piracy has become for gaming. It often seems like it comes down to three approaches when dealing with pirates: either ignore them, listen to them, or sue them.