[tristor]

Meanwhile, back when I had time to game heavily I would, as a matter of course, pirate every single game on PC because the experience was pretty much always superior, but I would also pre-order/buy on release the same games. I didn't pirate because I didn't want to pay for it, I pirated because I didn't want to deal with a single-player games requiring an always-on Internet connection and running kernel modules in Windows to do piracy/cheat detection, degrading system/game performance, and violating my privacy and the security of my system.

I own literally thousands of games on Steam, and thousands more outside of Steam. I also relentlessly pirated every game I wanted to play for decades. The way to "fix" piracy is by companies providing a superior user experience, not by beating their paying customers with sticks.

[prvit]

Sure, but you can’t seriously argue that there is a significant audience of people who’d refrain from buying games if they couldn’t pirate them.

[tristor]

I think there's a significant audience that simply wouldn't play games at all if they couldn't pirate them, because they can't realistically afford to buy them. In that case, I don't think piracy costs sales, it just allows involvement in a cultural phenomenon and art that would otherwise be inaccessible. I leave it up to the reader to decide if that's a positive outcome or not.