[shmde]

> But if someone pirates on release they'll never be inclined to buy at that lower price later on.

Just a personal anecdote. I have pirated a shitton amount of video games when I was young and didn't have money. You know what was one of the first thing I did after getting my salary ? I bought burnout paradise. I now own almost 1/2 of all the video games which I played as a pirate on steam and epic.

And also people who generally take the pirate route to play video games, never ever generally pay for it. So expecting a pirate would give in to buy a video game which he thinks will definitely get cracked in the near future is not really a good idea.