Nowadays, the absolute vast majority of games that I play are shit tbh.
This is why I pirate games first to try them out. I wanna be very clear that if I think a game is good I buy it, no questions asked.
However, since most games don’t have demos or trials, I don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted money so I look to piracy so that I can try them out before making a purchase.
AITAH?
If you play the game beyond what would be a trial/demo (equivalent of first chapter/level content), yes you would be. And the fact is, basically everyone is okay being an asshole, because the demographic of video games cannot ask their parents for thousands of dollars every year, at the rate they complete each game. Most video game pirates are either completionists, collectors or speedrunners.
I would say though the differentiator is video games that have practically stopped selling (pre 2007 and retro) and their companies that have gone bankrupt/defunct/extinct, in which case it does not matter at all, as the creators no longer earn money from the game.
Many unreasonable people that claim DRM is bad for performance, disguise the argument that all DRM is as evil and bad for performance as Denuvo is. Arguments need to be honest, so call DRM what it is. Masking arguments makes them weaker.