saluk wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 14:58:
There are people who would have bought it in magical no-piracy land, but I'd be willing to bet a very small fraction of the piracy numbers are in that category. When I had no money, yes I did pirate some games. When I had money, no I did not. When things are free, you can download many more items than you ever would be able to afford. You can even to afford to download some terrible console port someone comes out with. Forced to spend money, these people are only able to legally purchase those items they really value.

Would the sales numbers really be affected by that much? If the people who downloaded the latest Assassin's Creed knockoff actually be forced to CHOOSE whether to buy Skyrim, or Batman, or Assassin's Creed? Somebody would have made a bit more money, but it probably would have been Bethesda and not Ubisoft.

Not to mention the large portion of pirates who in magical no-piracy land would simply not be gamers, because they wouldn't be able to afford it.

Sales numbers affected? You bet. But WHOSE sales numbers and by how much? Who knows.