I'm under the impression that the group of people who if they can pirate something, will do so and never buy it, but if they can't, will just buy it, is quite small indeed.

Every time it comes out that a pirate version fixes things broken in the mainline version, esp if drm is what broke it, I slide more firmly into always pirate category.

meaningful online service is the only thing that drives me to buy AAA games now and days, and most don't even have that.

Do people in the "always pirate category" buy games that they can't pirate, though? Or do they just skip those games and play different ones instead?

That describes me. I pirated lots of games when I was still into gaming. I bought Tribes 2, for example, because of course you can't pirate it if you want to play online (and it's a multiplayer-only shooter). Same for e.g. PUBG and one or two others.

Steam is a great thing for anti-piracy; 99% of the time it works without any friction and is faster/safer than piracy.

On the other hand I've only played the original Call of Duty and BF1942, and have neither paid for nor pirated any of the sequels of either. Frankly most AAA games actually really suck.

I generally won't buy single player games I can't pirate. The reason for this is they either have some online only bullshit, which is unacceptable in a single player game, or some DRM performance degrading virus.

The only game I pirated in the last 10 or so years was Metro Exodus because it was removed from the Steam store just before launch.

> The only game I pirated in the last 10 or so years was Metro Exodus because it was removed from the Steam store just before launch.

I waited until I could buy it for ridiculously dirt cheap on sale (literally a tiny fraction of full asking price) because their actions at launch destroyed my willingness to pay full price. Had they done things differently, they easily could have had me as a happy full price purchaser.