2.d. Piracy & Try Before You Buy - You hear (even in this thread) from "otherwise honest people" that a reason for pirating games is so that they can, essentially, demo the game. I think a lot of those same people then conveniently forget to "purchase" the game until after they have completed it, and then what's the point? However, being a reasonably honest person and embarking on an average gaming rig has made me think once or twice that it would be nice to "demo" something before purchasing it.

2.d.i. You know, like with a demo.

2.e. Above is an argument for demos lessening the reasons (the stated reasons, anyhow) for piracy... could demos also lead to piracy? I don't think so... but maybe that's a reason why PC games generally ditched the practice.

2.f. And since you can't borrow/loan (generally) PC games...

2.g. Who ever played a SNES demo? Did they have N64 demos? Back in the day, one of the advantages that PC could lord over their console brethren. I don't know if PS1 did any demos, and I think it was a limited practice on PS2 and oXbox. It's really taken off as a console feature on consoles... about the same time it shut down on PC.

2.g.i. What gives?

The end.