I wouldn't say that, myself.

In the case of software (a creative product that many, here, have a vested interest in), pirating can actually lead to future sales.

I think one of the most pirated programs out there, used to be Adobe Photoshop.

This resulted in a huge number of folks that became expert Photoshop users, and that drove sales of the app, in their careers.

The same probably cannot be said for games. I suspect a pirated game, is a lost sale.

Anecdotally, when I was in a grad-level design class as an undergrad, 100% of my classmates first learned to use their tools via a jailbroken copy of professional software. At that level of competition for opportunity, it just wasn't good enough to have waited until you got to college to learn these tools; you needed to have been playing with them in high school to be fluent enough to look good on a college application form (or a grad application form four years later).

AutoCAD, in particular, used to be[1] super smart about this and went out of their way to get their toolchain in front of high-schoolers (even back when that involved pricy copy-protection solutions like physical dongles).

[1] Not to imply they are no longer super-smart about it; I just no longer have clear signal.

I'm probably going to hit 1000 games this year on steam, around 960 currently

I pirated every single game I have ever bought first, with the exception of games that had Demos. If it's a Denuvo game, I refuse to ever buy it (especially since the pirated version is guaranteed to be a better experience).

What leads to lost sales in the video game world (at least if we look at people like myself) is making bad games, whether it be horrible optimization issues, bloated spyware like Denuvo, broken/buggy games etc.

Like Gaben said, people have no problems with paying for stuff, it just has to be high quality and reliable, and most modern games are neither for the most part.

Personal experience (sample size: 1), a lost sale when I was age 16 made a true believer out of me for some developers, so at 35 I buy their games no question day 1.

A lot can change in 19 years, but I've gone back and bought most every game I pirated on steam now that the income isn't as scarce.

For myself, I also pay for my creative consumer stuff (streaming and art).

It's a bit dispiriting, to be sneered at, for it.

Who are these developers making reliably good games over 20 years?

Lemmings was a great game, but that isn't informative as to Grand Theft Auto, which isn't.

FromSoft, potentially. Even if you only start counting years at Demon's Souls (2009), that still gets them to 15 years.