your line of thinking assumes that many people that download a game would buy it. that is in fact not likely to be true. i know this because when i was poorer i regularly downloaded games i couldn't afford to buy and if i couldn't download them i wouldn't play them.
the people like say Bill Gates who have the paper aren't downloading games because its nothing for them to buy them. as my money get better in life i actually bought more and more games simply because i could afford to.
i download a lot of anime now that i wouldn't watch if the choice was buy it of DVD or not watch it. shyt comes on TV for free in Japan so why should i have to buy a DVD for something i don't even know if i'll like and even if i do like it doesn't mean i wanna own it.
now with used games that was a person willing to spend money on the game and they bought the game its just that the developer didn't get compensated in the transaction nor did the publisher.
used games are more damaging than piracy because these are people who are willing to spend money and have money to spend. many pirates aren't that.
First of all when it comes to the bolded, what part of steam proving it don't you understand? I think you are primarily a console gamer so you don't have a fresh perspective of just how bad things got in the PC world in the late 90's to early 2000's. Piracy was killing everything and PC gaming was almost looked upon as dead. In fact, piracy was one of the big problems on the damn Dreamcast and a major contributor to that system being shelved quickly.
As far as your "poor" comment, you don't HAVE to buy a game as soon as its released, what is this sense of entitlement from you guys? If you can't afford a $60 game, then I would hope that you don't have to resort to stealing the damn thing because your finances are not in order.
A triple-A game usually has 5 pricing tiers
$59.99
$39.99
$29.99
$19.99
$9.99
If people can't pirate the game easily then they will fall into one of those tiers if they are really interested in playing the game. Once you pay for a product you have a greater sense of appreciation of what you have put money in, maybe even contribute to a community forum in which developers and publishers can read to improve on a title. More people buy it? Means even quicker price drops. The product moves well, more chances are taken, and on average most people will pay a lower price once tiers are reached. It's a win-win when all things are considered and not much of a large investment from the community as a whole.
Used and Downloads? They are BOTH damaging and you trying to break down which is more or less harmful is not the issue here. The publishers AND developers have to take control of the market to secure their investments. They SHOULD have control of seeing some money from almost each pair of eyes that views their product. This shouldn't be this hard for you to grasp. You keep pulling this line of "Oh, how do you know people who are downloading will buy it." I am not talking absolute numbers here, I understand that there will ALWAYS be a certain group who will NEVER refuse to pay for the game just like there are those who refuse to work for a living. This does not negate the fact that they should NOT be entitled to enjoy the fruits of the labor of THOUSANDS that spent MONTHS and in some cases YEARS developing something when those people have put a value of ZERO on it.
Your story of buying more games since you started making more money is nice, but it STILL does not justify downloading a product and disrespecting the fact that people put all this time into developing something for you to enjoy at a fair price. Would you like to work in an industry in where you worked your ass off and possibly could face a layoff after working 50-60+ hour weeks because some a$$hole decided to fire up a torrent so millions could possibly download something you put so much time and effort into? I didn't think so.
I glossed over your Anime Japan comment because of how ridiculous it is. Are you JEALOUS that the people in Japan are watching something for free? MOVE TO JAPAN if its that serious to you. Do you think manufacturing a product is free to get it ready for consumption in ANOTHER COUNTRY? Do you realize how many layers all of this shyt has to go through to get to you? YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS RIGHT NOW
I'll never get Netflix, why would I when I can torrent everything" inferring those of us that do subscribe to something like Netflix don't know how to use a torrent or something 