Here is an observation I have: Why would pirate something that they have no interest in? It would seem to make sense that a pirate would have a larger interest in what they pirate than the average person, and possibly could be forced to buy more stuff if they had to. It is possibly they have been forced to buy more now, because they can't pirate as much. Or the industry has offered enough bonus incentives to get them to buy, in the form of knickknacks that come with the games.  Another option is a pirate has an interest in games larger than his budget can afford.  The pirate then finds out how easy it is to pirate stuff, and they go that route.

Yea that would be my take on it as well.  They aren't just pirating these things for the sake of pissing developers off, as they obviously have an interest in what they are getting.  Not everything they want can be obtained illegally and they probably want a lot of shit so that would make them more prevalent customers than the average.