I think No Man's Sky is also in the same boat.
I mean games which keep releasing further content over long periods without charging extra for it. Surely the amount of new sales eventually dwindles considerably. Is the cost of new content once you have the core game this low or…?
NMS is a good example of creating a situation where people don't WANT to pirate your game. People will buy it to play with friends and it's generally a good deal. Compare that to Paradox games, who monetize everything, which I'm convinced are mostly played through piracy.
Most paradox games I've seen have an unlocker you can find online that just enables all the DLC.
Is Paradox really a good example? Their games usually have a stupid long life with deep discounts on the base game, and multiplayer allows you to play DLC that the host bought. I feel like with them, there's a "buy it on sale" or "don't buy most DLC" mentality instead of a "pirate it" mentality, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Only reason I bought CK3 was because of the Steam Workshop. Otherwise I'd be playing pirated.