The ESA and EA have admitted that piracy to lost sales is not the 1:1 ratio that the industry has been touting for so long.
[url]http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20424[/url]
In this article they are quoted as saying:
[QUOTE]"Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale," she tells Gamasutra.
In estimating losses to the industry attributable to piracy, the Entertainment Software Association has come to a similar conclusion, says Dan Hewitt, the ESA's senior director of communications.
"It’s important to remember that it’s not a one-for-one equation," Hewitt says. "Our calculation isn’t such that we say that every game that’s been stolen is a sale loss."[/QUOTE]