Anyone trying to claim piracy doesn't effect game sales is naive. Pirates are not all noble people only pirating games they weren't planning on buying anyway so undoubtfully some sales are lost. The thing is though, piracy does exist, will always exist, and games will always end up getting cracked. In that sense it is a none issue since there is no way of avoiding it.
DRM, especially in single player games, is completely pointless and only punishes legitimate buyers, as pirates will be able to play the game, without dumb restrictions, and usually days if not weeks before the release date for free. Publishers need to accept the fact they they have already lost xxx sales to pirates. They need to make sure they aren't selling inferior products to what can be downloaded for free online because that will only further encourage more piracy.
