For those not familiar with the subject, I'll spare you the technical details, and provide a simple analogy. Let's say there's a person named Jane. She goes to her local hardware store and buys a cheap screwdriver, one that costs about a buck. Later, her friend Rick calls and says that he needs a screwdriver. So Jane goes down to her basement, fires up her lathe, and makes an exact copy of the screwdriver she bought before, and gives it to Rick.

The hardware store owner then sees Rick using the screwdriver, accuses him of theft, and files a lawsuit. Of course, Rick didn't steal it: he and the store owner had no interaction whatsoever. Then, Rick finds out that the hardware store owner isn't just suing him for a dollar, which is the cost of the screwdriver- the owner is suing him for almost FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Now, replace 'screwdriver' with 'song' and 'hardware store owner' with 'RIAA', take out the part about the lathe, and that's basically what's going on here. So, did Rick commit a crime?
Your analogy is flawed in every way possible.

First a screwdriver in no way compares to a video game, piece of software or movie. Especially the former.

A screw driver doesn't cost millions of dollars to produce and require a million copies sold in order to pay production costs for the game just made, turn a large enough profit to satisfy publishers and their stockholders while still having enough left over to fund the next game.

Downloading a game illegally is theft. You are stealing the hard work put into it. How would you like to lets say, be a plumber, fix their pipes, only to be stiffed at the end. That is what you are doing, stiffing them for the work they did.

And don't say, "Well, I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so its not theft."

What about the people who were going to pay for it and download it anyway? How are you going to differentiate between the two? You can't, so its either all or nothing and it needs to be all.

Music I don't really care about, but I heard that the music industry is dying with only hits being able to turn a large enough of a profit to cover distribution costs and publisher demands. Digital downloads might have something to do with it. Just do a poll on how many people actually buy their music, that should give the answer.

But music should be illegal as well just to maintain principal.

And the old, "Not like my $40 would have made a difference." No, but there are millions of you saying, "Not like my forty bucks makes a difference." and together that makes a large difference and only the conceited believe themselves to be the exception.