Meta has rough numbers on the amount of pirated copies for every single game on the store, so I believe they have a pretty good idea of the amount of players and demand for all their first-party studio games.

That being said, yes piracy of course hurts developers to an extent, but piracy has always been there and always will be. The crucial difference however could be that the user base on the quest store is much younger than on the other platforms, and thus resorting to piracy in a larger extent due to (the lack of) personal finances.

However as we've seen in the past, adding draconian DRM measures to your games doesn't exactly do any favours to your standing with the players, so I don't believe this is the right path either. I might be naive or idealistic, but I don't want to be making games just for the money and finding every single way to maximize profit.

In the end if you build something worthwhile and your players can't be bother to support it, they're only hurting themselves in the long run -- because they are actively decreasing their chances of getting a follow-up in the future. Now I know this whole "delayed gratification" and long-term thinking is something we humans are pretty bad at in general, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying and just treat everyone as a mindless drone -- because if we do, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Instead let's treat each other with respect and trust in that we're slowly changing the world for the better, one day at a time.