Who saw this coming the moment Doom3's existance was confirmed?
*raises hand*
Come on, get 'em up, don't tell me you didn't predict this too.
For one it's Doom3. What do you think people are going to do with a sequel to the first real FPS ever? Second, the game hasn't been released officially yet, and on top of that, it still won't be available until the 7th in alot of places. People want to play this damn game. They've waited this long, they're not going to wait any longer if they can get it right now.
Thirdly (illegitimate reason in my opinion, but people do justify piracy with this) the game costs 60 bucks. UT2004 cost me $35, and most of the games I own were $20 or less. Last time I paid $50 for a game was in January of '03, with SimCity4. That was a mistake. I don't buy games now until they've aged at least a month.
Lastly, demos no longer seem to do their full version counterparts justice. For example, the UT2003 demo was just about the buggiest "game" I have ever tried. It wouldn't even run on my VooDoo5, I had to wait for a demo patch to be released. This was all before the actual game was even released.
When it was released, UT2003 was somewhat more polished, but still had some bugs lying around. After a few months the game worked itself up to v2199, and was looking very nice... but the demo was still using the old build, the original build, the one that required the patch. Someone who played the demo and someone who played the full version before buying the game would have two very different opinions about UT2003.
Disclaimer: no, I'm not downloading Doom3, no, I'm not telling you download Doom3, no, I'm not defending pirates, and my sig doesn't apply to this thread. Fin.