I wasn't planning to make another reply, but I felt obliged to do it and answer some questions.
1. I am a software, kernel and game developer. I am very well aware of the business, how piracy affects developers, etc...
2. I went aggressive as the thread is controlled by the developer of the game, and as others have stated everyone that comes to this platform are expected to pirate games.
3.
Pokey21 Nope, I got exactly what I wanted as of result.
4.
Vathris Life, the suic*** attempts didn't help.
When it comes to piracy, I think of it as a way for people to experience the game before deciding whether to support the developers or not, something most of us want to do when we see some new shiny... lets say AAA game release, you'd feel ripped off if the game turned out to be something that you don't enjoy at all (There are refunds but it has limits and can be messy). Just to add more on that, some people may not have the money at that given time, and after some amount of time if they loved the experience and keep coming back to it, meaning its a good game, its very likely they will support the developer when they have some money to spare, especially if there are benefits that you wouldn't otherwise have from a pirated version of the game, such as steam cloud, steam achievements, steam workshop, multiplayer, etc...
This is what rubbed me the wrong way, I keep seeing people use platforms like Patreon to hold the content back from people that want to experience the latest version of the game before supporting the developer. This is when you go to pirating websites like I**GAMES only to see... THIS, a game thread on the site you pirate games on to be controlled by the developer the same way as on the platform the game is published on, in this case Itch.io
I sometimes see people locking the game entirely behind Patreon or other platform, instead of you buying the game once for a price and owning it with its future updates, you are forced to pay for the game MONTHLY instead and that is disgusting.
I have never used this monetization model and never will.
For my last words, I just want to say that this community is great and I am happy to finally break silence here, I did this for the people that were waiting for weeks and just didn't get what they came for until I showed up.
pachipoi I think your game is great and has a lot of potential, there is a reason why I have my eye on this game and I am very picky when it comes to games I enjoy, I support you but I hope you let people pirate your game on this platform for reasons above, you can put a disclaimer in the game that "If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting me on XXX" and putting the game on Steam is a very good choice.