No, you misunderstood the comment, it said that paying nothing is compelling, not that paying something was inconceivable or something; it was a response to a comment with a common misconception that pirating is only some "service problem"
I agree with your earlier comment (GGP) and feel like you're contradicting yourself here. "Too expensive" is either a service problem or at least directly adjacent to it. It's distinct from "well if I can get away with piracy then I'll do it". To say that free is a compelling price is to imply the latter as opposed to the former (at least imo).
Yeah but if a pirate would have not paid the full price why care? It is by definition not a lost sale, the most likely outcome is just an increase by one the player count
Because the price isn't binary? Also, the total spend isn't fixed either, it depends on how easy it's to pirate. So it's by definition still lost revenue, even if later/at reduced price
Consider reality instead, you can make any fantasy case you want:
C. You didn't pirate, but played because your friends were deeply into it, so you skipped buying lunch to save money and pay for the game (pirating was hard for this specific DRM). You bought it at a discount on sale (remember, the price isn't fixed?). That feeling of overcoming hardship and friendship fused into a very positive experience, making it 10 times more likely for you to buy the next version than in A. or B. The overall likelihood still was tiny because now you have a family and don't have time to play, so that and
D. Considering the amount of uncertainty (your game company will go out of business in 25 years) the value of your "more likely" is $0
Not paying full price is not a "lost sale". People unwilling to pay full price wait for a discount or price reduction. Look at how popular the seasonal Steam sales are. Pirating the game very likely means they never purchase it at any price, which _is_ a lost sale.
I never paid for games as a kid (starting with 8 years and first PC). We didn’t have the money until much later. Other friends and uncles had games, we copied it all. Eight years later (with 16) I bought two game compilations for birthday and Christmas. Around 40 games, no more than 2 or 3 years old. I had fun for years.
And then much later being a university student, I had money of my own and have bought games I liked. Never pirated to save money. And you know, GOG came along, and I was thrilled having the old games from my childhood again as digital legal copy. With manuals and addons. I bought 20+ old DOS games I already knew. Better late than never.
You really need something way better than some shoddy survey to counter the obvious fact that price matters