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[Neonivek]

Don't forget the fines... the extremely high fines.

Honestly if the Topic creator actually manages to get charged, it would have been cheaper for him to start a new account and buy every single game over again including the one he pirated by a large margin.

[Footkerchief]

What makes you think that you ever actually successfully pirated the game, i.e. activated it in Steam?  If you know that the program hijacked your account, and the program also didn't activate the game, then the program was probably never intended to activate the game.

[Muz]

Uh, fines on piracy are quite lenient, though it depends on how zealous people are. The fact that your mom's credit card number is there at least says that you're paying for something, so it's not so bad.

Anyway, go to your mom, tell her the whole truth. Then go to the cops, Steam, etc and tell them the relevant bits.

You'll probably get grounded or at worst not allowed to use that credit card for a while, but that's really a lot better than the alternative, obviously. And being involved in scams and having a few friends involved throughout my teenage years, I know that a lot of parents are lenient when their kids get scammed (at least the first time around).

Be quick about it too.

[Antioch]

1. Install a decent virus scanner
2. Change email password ASSAP
3. Piracy + steam = nono

Multiplayer for pirated games is possible, but usually requires cracked servers which only exist for some games. They aren't usually the nicest places to game, so I don't know if that is even desirable.

[Agorp Stronden]

I know piracy isn't good

And what is? Plastic consumer waste, mindless thrift culture... If you really want to support anyone, pirate everything you can and share with everyone, then personally send money to the developers to support them.

[Calhoun]

EDITNOTE: Your pirated games will never operate reliably in multiplayer. There is no program that will ever change that. If you want to play with your friends, either buy the game or play something else. This is directed both at you and at all the lurking preteens who will one day make your mistake.

I don't want to get into the moral side of this, but there is no reason to lie to promote a moral agenda.

This is a false statement. I have played several, including the game on discussion here, just fine online while pirated. Bad or morally wrong? That is your call to make, but this is equal to telling someone that smoking weed will ruin their life.

Education, not ignorance.

[ChairmanPoo]

The keyword is reliably. For the most part it's difficult to get pirated stuff to run properly on the web, without resorting to private servers and such.

[AllThingsLive]

Ooh, I got my account back and he didn't do anything besides erase my friends list. I didn't even get cited for piracy (So far)! And this guy didn't even touch the credit card, I don't know if he had no interest in it, if he just wanted games or what, but my mom was just able to cancel that card and get a new one, and everything is golden! I know this thread got way more into piracy and everything in the end, but I thought I'd just like to say, everything is bueno again

[ed boy]

You're not clear just yet. There could easily be more stuff that you haven't noticed yet.

[Neonivek]

Uh, fines on piracy are quite lenient, though it depends on how zealous people are.

From what I understand the exact minimum is 750 dollars.

[alway]

You're not clear just yet. There could easily be more stuff that you haven't noticed yet.

This. If you haven't thoroughly virus scanned your computer, everything you've done since then has most likely been logged, including any passwords, bank info, ect. You wouldn't get cited for piracy; you were stupid and installed malware on your computer, there never was any sort of piracy software in it.

[Agorp Stronden]

fines on piracy are quite lenient

From what I understand the exact minimum is 750 dollars.

And we pay the gov'n'ment to dump plastic into the ocean (though it really is everyones' fault:) and to promote the growth of the population bottleneck (though it really is everyones' fault:).

P:S:it should rather say, "...the growth of the population's destruction:)"

[Neonivek]

You're not clear just yet. There could easily be more stuff that you haven't noticed yet.

This. If you haven't thoroughly virus scanned your computer, everything you've done since then has most likely been logged, including any passwords, bank info, ect. You wouldn't get cited for piracy; you were stupid and installed malware on your computer, there never was any sort of piracy software in it.

True they likely wouldn't charge you since you could just deny it. Except for the confession... which I guess could get you charged in the attempt.

Though I guess it depends what kind of crime it was. (Is Piracy an intent crime? can you be charged with piracy if you attempt to pirate? I know soem crimes such as "Breaking and entering" require both the act and intent)

[Knight of Fools]

I'm pretty sure piracy requires the act more than anything.  It's pretty hard to prove that you meant to go out and download some pirated games.

To AllThingsLive:  I'd go into that mode where you think you have a virus but really don't know it.  Assume you have something that can read the keys you punch into your keyboard.  Assume any sensitive information that is on your computer is public access.  You may have given a seedy, potentially intelligent program access to information that can make your life and your family's life a living inferno, best to take the necessary steps.

The best thing to do would be do a complete system restore.  Back up only what you need, and wipe the hard drive and re-install your Operating System.  When you give Bad Programs access like you did, it's especially difficult for virus programs to track it down, unless it happens to be particularly common.  If wiping your hard drive isn't an option and you have windows, you could do a dated system restore, going back to a date before you installed the malware.  That may not fix everything, but you've got a better chance at removing it than doing nothing.

Also, keep in mind that the folks at Valve may be keeping a particularly close eye on you now.  Best to keep to the safe side.

I hope it works out!