Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I’ve bought games because there were no cracks available, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a game after pirating it. Plenty of others have pirated games and then paid for them. I often pirate games after paying for them. Piracy enables people to try games in genres they aren't willing to take a chance on at full price, it serves as a form of advertising giving people a chance to get into a game or franchise they migh…
>Plenty of others have pirated games and then paid for them. I doubt a meaningful amount of people did this, but I’d love to see evidence to the contrary. >and plenty of people (myself included) have refused to buy or play games until a crack is available. Well, yeah, but it’s HN and we have all kinds of crazy people here who aren’t very representative of the overall market.
Multiple studies have shown that pirates are often the best customers. (see https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-spend-much-more-money-on-mu...)
It makes sense. If somebody is supper passionate about games, or music, or movies they might pirate to get early releases, alternate versions, and to try new things. Collectors may even want to keep their purchased media untouched/unopened or may just want easy access to their purchases.
I've pirated things I've purchased just because it was faster than ripping a CD myself or even going into the next room to take a DVD off the shelf and using the player.