Except the other guy literally claims that people that pirate wouldn't buy the game anyway. Well I would have had I not been able to pirate. So the claims not true.
I'll repeat what I said, and I'll also rephrase my original reply:
Just because you're one of the "wallet-first" pirates (that is, pirates if possible, otherwise falls back to just giving up and paying for it anyway), that doesn't mean that my entire reply is completely invalid.
As I said, "wallet-first" pirates are in such a minority, that I decided to not mention them.
There are "piracy always" pirates who would rather wait years for a game to be cracked than to shill out a single penny, ever. Because of this behavior, they shall not be counted as a lost sale, as they never had any intention to remove a single penny from their wallet.
There are also "buy unless very inconvenient" pirates, who end up always paying for the game sooner or later, unless they feel like they are majorly screwed over, and decide to not support such endeavour. Harsh DRM is one such example (see how Spore's DRM ended up extremely backfiring). They also sometimes tend to wait for others to risk their money (or for their pirate friends to acquire the game) to leave feedback about the game before deciding to buy it.
Not mentioned in my original reply, but at this point might as well add:
There are "pirate first, buy later" pirates, who are basically like the ones above, except they end up holding off on paying for somewhat longer. They also just test the games themselves, and decide whether it's worth their money to buy the game, instead of waiting for others to tell them. They are tiny bit in smaller numbers than the other two categories above.
There are "wallet-first" pirates who try to pirate the game if possible, but value their time enough to give up after some time, and just pay for the damn game if piracy is too difficult and/or time-intensive. GabeN's vision is to transition as much of this category as possible to storefronts which make paying for the game more convenient than piracy. They should be somewhat smaller than the above category, yet statistically still significant. Should not be more than ~10-12% of game sales at worst, but usually slightly more than 1% of sales.
There is also an odd category of piracy, which is "platform bending" (I forgot the original word used by the mp3 piracy lawsuit), which is where you have already bought the product (it doesn't have to be a game, it can also be music), and since you already have a legal copy of the product, but not in the way you might need, you transform the product to your own needs (for personal use only, never leaving your possession, and not making copies for others!). The problem usually is that you have a product in a way which is protected by such DRM that makes you unable to acquire a DRM-free copy (for example, media encrypted with unknown key, and/or Switch gamecart ASIC undumpable with unhackable Switch), so you're forced to unlawfully acquire a DRM-free copy which you can transform to fit your needs (for example, copy the music file to your DAP (Digital Audio Player), or play a Switch ROM in an emulator, which can do better visual fidelity, probably better performance, and controller support which the original console does not support).
I have statistically unsignificant data about this category, so I can't give numbers. This is a category of piracy which (I think) should be legalized, as it's completely moral (as long as you're not hurting sales, not making illegal copies for others to feed on, etc.), and it just makes the product adapt to your own needs. In fact, the best solution would be for this piracy group to not have to exist at all, as in an ideal world you could freely adapt the product to your own needs as long as it doesn't get rid of a potential sale.
Edit:
Oops, forgot the "piracy out of necessity" category.
As the name implies, it's piracy which is caused by the lack of legal ways to acquire a medium. For example games not sold anymore, games crippled by online DRM, lack (or inaccessibility) of depending hardware (like compatible CD-ROM drives, aging consoles not manufactured anymore which did not get a 1:1 chip clone, etc.), or even just simple region locks, or the only online storefronts not working properly. There is not much more to be said. I can't find the meme, but "no play, only remember" is what companies want, but we game enjoyers want to experience the art many people have sinked big chunks of their life and energy into, and not have it go to waste due to stupid reasons.
As for my statistics data, I don't remember anymore where it starts, but most of the data goes up to around 2017-2018, with a few data entries of new game sales up until 2021. The statistics are most prelevant for AAA titles, although there might have been some very successful indie titles mixed in as well.
I would link my sources if I wasn't a big enough idiot to actually save them.
Source
