Sometimes I wonder if what is hurting overall PC sales is internet reviews, especially all of us rushing out to give our "IMHO" reviews. NOT 1st party,3rd party support piracy etc. In the old days, I would have to mostly read the back of the box, pay attention to who developed the game and some word of mouth from people I knew and thus knew how they reviewed games. Now before you can even "pirate" a game, there are majority of bashers out here in the virtual world...so then in turn yeah people may "pirate" a game to just see is it that bad then never buy it, and same for the supposed Console low sales pirating is harder, so less people may pirate a game but not buying is no different than pirating to the bottom line (Studios don't make this connection), people will at best just rent/borrow/buy used.. of course this domino effect into Farmville, Assassins Creed, GTA repetition/serialization/whole game divided up in 10 hour multiple COD games and ripoffs occur.
When asked I usually rate a game, based on a BUDGET, and preface my review with how long I have owned/played it... I believe any game can be given a dollar amount, hard to say in present day game with 10hours of play is worth 60, and any game that gives me 5 hours of fun play is worth 10$...this gives my friends a ranking that means something to them, and makes it easy for them to determine how much they may like the game...