Aren't TV shows at the absolute top of pirated stuff, yet it's the most thriving business in the movie/TV entertainment business? Big name actors are crossing over into the TV-show medium quite often nowadays.
And there's no evidence to suggest that gamers who pirate games would purchase games without the choice of pirating. Sure, there are probably a couple of games they might have bought, but the ratio is nowhere near 1:1. Maybe like 1:100, 1:500 or more. And doubtfully on release.
And these pirates are also responsible for a lot of word of mouth. Pirates might tell their friends if the game is great, or bad, which might result in the friend purchasing it, or not. The pirates might also talk about it on forums. Obviously not a 1:1 either. It's a complicated situation.
Just an example to highlight that there *could* also be some additional sales from the word of mouth;
100 copies pirated, 100 pirates. 50 tell their friends, 25 friends buy a copy. Actual customers upset by the DRM.
Former pirates; 10 copies bought, 10 new customers. 5 tell their friends, 1 friend buys. Former pirates upset by the DRM.
The big question is, would the publishers/developers get more sales if pirated copies weren't available? Since only a few pirates would actually buy, and since the word of mouth would be reduced in general, I'm not sure. Since they would have to implement even worse DRM than now to actually prevent it, or make the games much cheaper, I think the situation isn't as dire as some may suggest.
Skyrim is a single player game with few DRM restrictions, yet sold around 6 million at launch. Why are publishers still blaming pirates after this? The market is clearly out there.
The general situation of the focus on pirates seems to work out like this; publisher releases extremely expensive, mediocre game with little marketing, and sales only reflect the mediocrity and the effort put into the marketing. The publisher thinks that if it couldn't be pirated, more people would buy it. Does this mediocre game even deserve more sales? No.
What does the publisher do? He devises a plan to prevent pirates from pirating it -- a plan that also punishes the paying customers. Does the publisher even know how many copies they lost to pirates? No, but he probably would have done it even if it only resulted in one more copy sold, it seems.
How many pirates even play through all the games they download? I think pirated games practically function more like demos.
There seem to be very few cases where a truly great game has completely failed. The developers responsible for such games also get recognition in the industry at large, which probably leads to much more options as well.
Also, I think most pirates only have a passing interest in games. Playing a copy you didn't pay for is simply a different, lesser experience.
Anyhow, I thought this guy would be much more reasonable than what those statements seem to suggest.