[Hobo]

It's not so much a stupid concept as it is a giant middle finger to a large part of your fan base. Piracy can go two ways. They pirate it and then buy it when it turns out to be good. Or they pirate it with absolutely no intention of ever buying it to begin with. The latter would never become your customer at all if there was no way to pirate the game, but might become a paying customer in the future if you deliver a solid product.
The first wants to be convinced to become your customer because they're not sure the price is fair or if the game is their thing. This entire group could be completely eliminated by something as simple as a free demo.

Only a very small percentage of piracy actually results in 'a lost sale', if you can even measure something like that reliably. But game developers like to look at the total number of pirated copies and consider them ALL 'lost sales', which is incredibly inaccurate because that's simply not how it works.

I honestly believe that the percentage of people who 'pirate, likes and buys' is larger than the percentage of people who 'wanted to buy, had money to buy, but pirated instead because free'. Which, in the grand scheme of things, would make piracy a positive influence on sales instead of a negative.

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