Maybe that was a bad example. But this is also tough to prove since there's not a hard record on every transaction that didn't translate to a direct profit for the company.
Piracy also has a different impact depending on the industry. I'll try to read up on that and find something more useful.
And I agree that it is a bad thing.
I haven't thought of that, but that can be true. At the end of the day, the important thing here is also raising awareness that piracy isn't sustainable among those who give it a try. I think the anti-piracy screen of Just Shapes & Beats does an acceptable job at that.
Videos and movies are thankfully free (with ads) thanks to platforms like youtube or classic TV. Videogames... yes, but you have to research first. I keep seeing people mention piracy, but if the Epic Games Store had never gifted a game as popular as GTA V, I would have never known they give free games every week. Then are free and without microtransactions games on steam; not many, but there are some. And then there are a few games here and there that go on 100% sale (free, basically) on steam sometimes. But it's not as common to see people talking about that than as piracy, which... brings us back to your previous point of piracy being assumed as "acceptable".
Though, I don't think we should apply the same thought process for piracy of a current game (anything available for sale, including the now-20-years-old Half Life) than games that aren't sold anymore. Perhaps you liked a recent game of an old series and want to take a look at its history, but those games stopped being sold decades ago. You might find an overpriced used copy of the game online, but even if you bought that, none of the money goes to anyone involved in making the game (and there's no guarantee the game will be in good condition after so long). That does put game preservation and history at question.
Honestly... with so many factors involved, I don't doubt it:
It mostly comes down to the way of thinking of each individual person and a little bit of awareness of the behind-the-scenes. And knowing how different humans can think... I do believe that error margin is realistic.
Piracy helps game sales, but also hurts them at the same time. It's... a weird balance. The way I see it, it for sure will hurt short-term profits, but will increase long-term profits. Though, with how many companies focus entirely on short-term and act on that behalf I do see the downsides.
Surely won't be at short-term. But likely will be in the future.
I agree on that point. Piracy shouldn't be because "oh, it's the big studio. They'll be fine".
I agree including the free ones was irrelevant.
Also, from the article:
"if people know piracy terms but do not report piracy, this might indicate untruthful responses."
Piracy is so often talked about online that it doesn't always take being a pirate to know some specific terms. It only takes being a little active online on communities composed of fans of a company that messes up from time to time (Nintendo is a big example... the amount of times I've seen piracy mentioned and, in some cases, explained in detail after both, the switch 2's price announcement, and the closure of the 3ds's digital store...)
As long as DLC isn't made out of clear corporate greed, I'm in favor of it.
One of the two only DLC I've ever bought is mariokart 8 deluxe's. The base game came with 48 race tracks (the most out of any game in the series) and the DLC added 48 more for cheaper than what the base game costed. I'd say that was a pretty good deal, and a good way to keep the development team.
However, DLC isn't the only way to keep the development team working. If they made a good full game, why not keep them around for the studio's next game?
Well. That can be done with full games too, not just DLC. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is not a DLC of Super Mario Galaxy, but a full entire game sold separately. While it does add new gimmicks, the engine used is the same, with just a few additions. Because of it, a lot of 3D models and textures are also reused.
I fully agree with this.
All the little clip said was the same as above "If you cannot afford to support your game developer, then word-of-mouth is good enough. Then steal their product considering it as paid."
It's complete nonsense.
Evidence? Where are the numbers to support these claims?
You also post a contradiction here:
To make a different point, you then say:
Increasing long term profits by a small margin; when much of it likely does not go to those who made the product is not a valid suggestion that Piracy Helps Game Studios.
Almost the entirety of my post addressed this. At the beginning of development of a new game, far, far fewer developers are needed. Pre-production and early production set the stage to efficiently use everyone else (when things are done properly), but there's little to nothing to test, concept art is needed, but not full meshes and rigs, and so on and so forth. Behemoths like Nintendo with countless revenue streams can hold onto everyone. Well established mid-sized studios may be able to jump into a second game if they're reusing enough of the previous, but that's not a given. Less established mid-sized studios and smaller studios can't afford the hundreds of thousands to millions it'd take to retain people for which they have no work.
Major publishers have some ways around this that developers not owned or heavily aligned with a publisher don't have. By keeping the vast majority of QA at the publisher level, they can keep it occupied with games from multiple studios. (There's generally at the studio level too, to be sure, but the lion's share is publisher level.) It lets them keep QA busy with games from multiple studios. You can see this applied to other disciplines as well when a large publisher like Ubisoft has Massive do part X or Y of a game while Ubisoft Montreal does Z. Specialization in a megapublisher helps even things out too, since they have the resources to keep multiple games in the pipeline. The other method open to large enough publishers is ugly. After acquiring a studio, they get rid of much of the staff and start outsourcing everything they can. They don't HAVE to keep contract work, can pay much less for it, contract companies offer worse benefits (typically) which reduce the price of labor further.
As someone who's been in the industry 20 years, I can tell you pretty confidently: the DLC model at a small to midsized studio is the best thing for employees. The large publisher situation is extremely stressful and unpleasant.
A few more bits that may surprise: The vast majority of video games don't turn a profit. At all. Around 20% do. It's an old statistic, but I can't imagine it's gotten much better between rising costs of development and ever increasing market saturation. I will admit that I'd like a more up to date, more nuanced statistic. The game industry is too large to clump all categories together, and the 20% figure likely includes indies that never get discovered and shovelware that didn't deserve to succeed.
Some games that ultimately do turn a profit do so when it took so long the studio was shuttered. I can't find a citation, but it's my recollection that this happened with Titan Quest. It hung around forever, slowly accumulating sales past that 6 month initial window, and finally reached profitability. By then the studio was gone. Some of its alumni formed Crate Entertainment; the upcoming Titan Quest 2 has nothing to do with the original team, and neither did most of the expansions. (I believe the original team did one, maybe two expansions.) Sales years after the fact didn't help the creators, and now that they've had to move on, their games will be stuck competing with the IP they created.
(If you're wondering how so few games turn a profit in an industry this big, consider how many games come out that you'd never even glance at. A big success begets pursuers--think back to after World of Warcraft launched. It felt like a new MMO was coming out every other week, and failing almost as fast. Free to play games have become the biggest profit drivers.)
Also, it's really, really tough for new games. In 2024, around 2/3 of time spent playing games was on games six years old or more. It is hard to pull people away from the games they play with friends to get them into something new. It is hard to get people to step away from their sunk costs on a long running game to play something new. The latter is why I advocate DLC rather than long term live service. Adding up what I've spent on some games is very, very unpleasant. This makes it that much harder to get publishers to greenlight new IPs, and it's why so many have chased the live service model, even to their own detriment: they're desperate to be one of these games people play for six plus years.