This is true. I think I stopped pirating games - as soon as I could afford Steam games. Only rarely pirate games to "try" them out - then buy it on Steam. It also helps that they've gotten easy to run on Linux.

This is true, but a pirated game may still lead to a sale eventually, so they're not exclusive categories.

(Even better, there are games that I wouldn't buy on Steam, had I not have prior experience with them.)

imo it's still true bc of drm and vanishing content. Take AC 2. I'm not sure but afaik they turned off their servers or are about to do so and as result the pirated game will give you all the content, compared to og deluxe version that will not be able to get the content from the server. Games are pirated anyways regardless of drm, but drm will affect fps and the content can be vanished once servers are turned off, so you basically still get an inferior service compared to pirates, maybe less inferior compared to the past, but still inferior.

They’re widely pirated by people who can’t afford them.