Empire using Steam; Gamespot interview/preview

[Akka]

I find that hard to believe since in some countries you can buy top dollar pirated games from a street vendor for literally pennies on the dollar.

And so ?
In all countries you can download the said game for zero dollar. It's even cheaper than pennies paid to a street vendor. What's your point ?

The true impact of piracy is not simply people pirating a game they will buy in the future, its people stealing something they never truly in their heart intended to purchase.

So the true impact is that people who would not have paid for it, will not pay for it ?
Either I missed something in your reasoning, either you make absolutely no sense.

If you compare the online scene with what it was ten years ago, there's just no comparison. To discount it's growth is to ignore a real problem.

No, it's to take into account that, while piracy has incredibly increased in raw numbers, sales also have incredibly increased in raw numbers.
I don't think the proportion of piracy has really increased. Heck, I'm even pretty sure it has actually proportionnaly DEcreased, simply because there is now a LOT of "casual gamers" who buy all their games, while there was simply no "casual" people in the computer world twenty years ago - we were all somehow nerds/passionnates/technicians and the like. And non-casual people tends to "know the ropes", and as such have a much higher tendency to know how to get their games for free - and as such, much higher proportion to GET them for free.