Ever heard of "ripping" a disk, a stream, or a download? Movies, series, and video games get paid for by someone who then proceeds to make unauthorized copies, they very rarely come from anyone at the studio.

Lost sales are "legal" damages, which doesn't mean they're actual loss of anything, since people who were not going to pay, are worth exactly $0.

It's different when bootleg copies get sold, since then there is an actual payment that isn't going to the right person.

Many scene groups actually purchased the games and cracked them, I've read NFOs that say "buy the game, we did too".

People recording in movie theatres have to either sneak into the theatre or buy a ticket themselves.

Someone scanning a book to post online had to have bought it or borrowed it.

Yes some games are cracks of illegitimate obtained leaked copies or other unscrupulous methods.

I have played pirated games in the past but my Steam library has thousands of dollars worth of games I bought, many of which I wouldn't have if I weren't interested in these type of games to begin had pirating games not been possible.

Sure, the opportunity cost from piracy's "lost sales" to the publisher/licensor is non-zero. But how many sales that would have happened varies greatly on the perceived value vs. price of the product, and how available it is. If it's not in stores anymore and can only be bought from scalpers on eBay, the publisher cough Nintendo cough doesn't see that money anyway vs. pirating it.

I have hundreds of CDs, which are bought and paid for. Tell me, again, how making copies and (hypothically, of course) giving them to friend[1] incurs a direct cost to the CD producer?

Nearly all pirated content was most likely originally purchased once, and ripped. There's no evidence that much of it is from shoplifted DVDs.