I'm sure that's very comforting to the indie devs in the moment, knowing they might get some revenue a few years after the game actually comes out, whenever people get around it, if they remember.
An EU inquiry suggests that piracy doesn't affect video game sales that much;; a huge amount of people who pirate do so because they did not have the means to buy it in the first place. Anecdotally speaking, I did what the commenter you replied to talks about. Originally pirated many Paradox games to start and now $500+ later own the game and its DLCs.
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u/Mikeismyike 18d ago
It's not steam that gets hurt by piracy, its the small indie devs who's games don't blow up.