Nah you were right. Factorio devs have gone on record saying that they'll never put their game on sale. Something to the effect that it lowers the value of the players who bought it earlier. That said, before it reached 1.0 it was cheaper. The closer to release the higher the price had gone. Think I got it way back when it was $20.

Usually yeah. I still pirate them but use it as an extended demo. Still more than 80% of those I drop in less than a couple hours and never play again. Then I'm just happy I didn't pay for them. Others though like Factorio and Stardew valley I had to buy after pirating. They were just to good not to own.