I have, but that's an access issue where I live, where there are no official stores to buy things from, and the places which do exist don't have the games I want (on PS4). I download all Disney content as + is not available here either.

I have pirated a few games due to cost, since my SO is studying at the moment, and one of us has basically always been on parental leave the last 3.5 years. I bought both Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 when I could afford it though, since both of them brought me more than 100 hours of fun.

I never have, I don’t see the point when steam is just so convenient and has sales all the time. Just be patient on pricing, the game isn’t going to go away because you didn’t buy on release.

I also don’t trust downloading unverified, modified, software. An mp3 or mkv is probably going to be safe as you can’t load software through those really, but an exe can do anything

The list of games I've pirated in the past 15 years and steam publish games I've played are disparate/disjointed sets.

I prayed doom eternal, that was the only one. Then I bought it a week later.

I have pirated GTA5 and Cyberpunk 2077. Both were a disappointment.

The last game I pirated was Skyrim, and that mostly because I was unemployed and poor at the time

I hadn't either until the Steam autumn sale 2023, I wanted Dirt Rally 2 GOTY edition because it includes all the DLC, but I couldn't buy it because I already own the base game...

That’s how the system is set up. Even if the people in the corporation weren’t greedy, they need the line to go up every quarter. And when the higher leadership recognizes that, they hardly ever think about long term investments. So a corporation is not a money making machine, no, it’s a money maximizing machine. That’s why we call them greedy.

I mean GOG Galaxy exists, which can even show you all games from GOG, Steam, Epic, .. besides keeping your games updated.

It's still not as good as Steam, but at least a better solution than manually checking and installing updates.