I am incredulous as to the results of this study, but wanted to hear Lemmy’s take.
I can’t really speak to games, but in other industries it’s been pretty much proven that piracy increases sales:
https://librarylearningspace.com/online-piracy-can-boost-comic-book-sales-research-finds/
See, that was what I’d always heard, and this study seemed to condradict that.
I tried to read through some of its sources and understand the strength of their assertions but statistics was never my best subject.
If I am unable or unwilling to purchase a game (lack of funds, ethical concerns, etc) and I cannot pirate it or get it heavily discounted then I do something very simple and efficient.
I just don’t play it. There are heaps of great games out there, new and old, that I can put my time into instead.
Many of the games that pack Denuvo these days are AAA trash that I wouldn’t play anyway.
AAA studios can’t put anything out worth playing to save their life, with the rare exception.
I can’t get in to see the methodology, but I just fundamentally have a hard time buying that there’s going to be an approach that actually addresses the confounding variables in any way. The sample size is way too small for how massive the variance is between whatever you consider “extremely similar” games.
