I just checked one of the better known pirate sites and Universe Sandbox² was there in six versions. The newest was a12, most much were older. In all the comments for the cracked versions you could see people complaining that it did not work. Crack missing or defect or the data files being corrupted.
In reality, getting a cracked version commonly means that you have to take the trouble to find a cracked version which is not a fake containing virus/trojan/nothing. Then you generally have the trouble of making it actually run properly. Finally you have a copy which is several versions behind the latest state.
How large a percentage of the people, going through all that, would actually have payed the full price if there was not a crack available? It seems to me that most people, with the money to use, would have saved themselves the trouble.
The crack users (software crack, that is
) are generally split into five types of people
-they are just slightly curious about what the product is and want to see, but would never pay for it anyway.
-they are really interested, but truly do not have the money, so they would not have payed anyway.
-they are interested, but want to try it out a bit before getting their own copy, after which they either buy it or would not have been happy customers anyway.
-they want the product, and can afford the price, but would rather go through hell and back getting a working crack, for an old version, than paying for it.
I dare say the last type is not in the majority, so let us just stop talking about them.