Preservation is why it's important to have emulators as soon as someone has figured out how to get one running. Nintendo should be embarrassed that pirating their games often lets these people experience their games better than if the games were run through official channels. I was sure tempted to pirate Metroid Dread instead of buying it, but it wasn't because I couldn't afford it, just wanted it for free, or had some notion of retribution toward Nintendo. I was tempted because the Switch is terrible hardware, I prefer to play games on my PC, and it would run better on my PC. I think that was the last Nintendo game I bought. I haven't pirated any Switch games to date, because the only actual retribution I want toward Nintendo is for both my money and my time to go to games where the companies are less shitty. I'm not going to fault someone for wanting to play Tears of the Kingdom at frame rates higher than 23 FPS and resolutions better than 540p with no anti aliasing, and the best way for Nintendo to cut back on that piracy is to make the game for PC like everyone else is doing these days, but they know the upside of Switch sales is worth more to them than what these pirates cost them. Piracy will also preserve the game better than Nintendo ever will. I honestly don't care what the percentages are of freeloaders by comparison, because it doesn't matter.

EDIT: Oh, btw, I have pirated plenty of their back catalog, and I'm sure you have too. I'd love to buy them, like I bought Sega Genesis games and like I bought old Mega Man games on Steam, but how strange! There's no legal way to buy those old Nintendo games digitally. You can only rent them in perpetuity. Nah, I'll just pirate them.

If you’re downloading stuff because you want to play for free - which can be because of a lack of access (financial or otherwise) or a myriad of other reasons (perhaps it’s a milestone work but you don’t want to support a piece of shit dev) - then just be honest.

Why?