One topic I remember quite well in the discussion between PC or Console is that undertone of publishers “you have to protect the copies if you want to sell PC games, because there is piracy there and you get looted by those thieves.”
A few days ago Palworld was released: no DRM, no extra steps of protection. The game is multiplayer, but Pocket Pair even provides you with the server if you want to host on your own computer or you have a group of friends who want to rent a collective server. This comes from a Japanese developer, where only recently PC gaming seems to be undergoing a renaissance; in Japan where Nintendo, through lobbying, has managed to outlaw modding of consoles.
On the other hand, here in the West, we have the British studio called Rocksteady which is about to launch their future hit “Suicide Squad” that, apparently, will have to resort on Denuvo to protect its copies… because PC gamers are pirates.
While it remains to be seen how many more copies of Palworld the Rocksteady people will manage to sell, I think we already have an empirical answer on our side: the story that piracy kills the PC market is just big fat BS.
this answer, however, leaves us with a question: why is Rocksteady adding Denuvo if piracy is not an issue for games that people want to buy?
My take is this: (TL;DR) stopping piracy is BS, Rocksteady simply wants to block mods to make money by selling skins/lootboxes/whales.
Gabe Newell already noticed this years ago. Leading to that famous “piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue" quote.
My first guess would be a character flaw called “irrationality”, based on Hanlon’s Razor. Decision takers are also prone to dumbness, “chrust me”, stubborness, rolling on wishful belief, and similar. So they would be doing this because they genuinely believe that it’ll be better for them.
Blocking modders (as you said) would be perhaps my second go-to explanation.
Valve has followed through on this, too, they provide multiple services I find so convenient I’d rather buy games than pirate. Simple one click multiplayer without any port forwarding nonsense, the steam input API, the workshop (which, imo could be a better mod manager overall, but most games usually have mod managers in the workshop you can use)
And games go on sale so often it’s super easy to just buy it at 75% off anyways.
I don’t simp for billionaires normally, but Gaben isn’t full of shit at least.