What has been proven many times is that people overwhelmingly choose the least effort/risk option.
A free Steam full of certified pirates games with official games updates would obviously drop sales but this is moot as it will never exist.
A free Steam full of certified pirates games with official games updates would obviously drop sales but this is moot as it will never exist.
Without those, you'd have sites full of pirated game downloads easily found through search engines. DMCA takedowns force those sites into shady corners of the internet, making them harder to find and riskier for the average user. And (effective) DRM makes users have to wait for a crack which may take weeks or months.
The result is that it's easier for the average person to just log into Steam/Epic/PSN/eShop and spend $60 to play immediately.
I'm sure there are exceptions but the usual claims take the observation about a minor speed bump and add a bunch of made up BS to justify consumer hostile practices.
Notice that there's nothing stopping a centralized darknet platform that vettes torrents from popping up. But as far as I know no one feels like bothering. That should give you some idea just how low the bar is here.
That's literally the situation today. It is that easy. People still mostly don't pirate games though.
You spend $60 on games? I just add them to my wish list at launch and buy them when they're 30, 20...
I have more unplayed games than time anyway.