While the rest of the Internet community took to staging blackouts and voicing their protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, the main video game trade organization has supported the bills. It was only after SOPA and PIPA was shelved did the Entertainment Software Association withdraw its support for the controversial anti-piracy bills after widespread condemnation.

Although most major games companies are members of ESA, individual members including Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have pulled their support from SOPA. Games consumers and developers have been vocal about their opposition to the proposed bills and ESA support has rankled. Some consumers have even called for boycotts of the ESA annual trade event, E3.

"From the beginning, ESA has been committed to the passage of balanced legislation to address the illegal theft of intellectual property found on foreign rogue sites," said the ESA in a statement. "Although the need to address this pervasive threat to our industry's creative investment remains, concerns have been expressed about unintended consequences stemming from the current legislative proposals. Accordingly, we call upon Congress, the Obama Administration, and stakeholders to refocus their energies on producing a solution that effectively balances both creative and technology interests."

ESA's last minute withdrawal of support notwithstanding, the gaming industry has been firmly against SOPA and its sister bill PIPA. This stance may strike the inexperienced observer as illogical given that the bill would actually protect the game companies' main product but this isn't actually the case. In fact Rovio CEO Mikael Hed told the Midem conference in Cannes that "Piracy may not be a bad thing."

According to Hed piracy could actually get companies more business. He explained that game companies should learn from the music industry and how it tried to combat piracy. While Rovio has merchandise pirated around the world especially in Asia, the company only pursues pirated product that hurts the Angry Birds brand through quality or pricing.

"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans," he said. "If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."

Rovio's CEO makes a strong point. The Internet has made it possible to share content in new and interesting ways where games actually benefit from interactions between gamers. Consumers share user made content for games like the Sims or Skyrim which in turn pushes sales. Piracy could also save software. Software pirates have saved older games from being lost in the data ether. Software can decay in a matter of years. CDs can get too scratched to function properly. Games published on ROM cartridges are getting harder to find and it's only through the efforts of digital pirates that these games have found new life in emulators.

Beyond saving games one other argument for piracy is that online pirates aren't actually eating into the game companies profits. People are pirating games, TV shows and movies right now but it hasn't cut into the movie, television and gaming industries billion dollar revenues. The fact is people who pirate content aren't really going to buy it in the first place. They pirate content that they're just trying out like games or TV shows. People who are legitimately interested in a game will go out and buy it, casual gamers who aren't sure if they want to pay $50 for a game will go online to get for free. Only a small portion would actually pirate content they want to watch.