I agree with the first sentence, but that's what I feel this slogan does a poor job of reinforcing.

The wages only appear if the thing they produce creates profits for the corporation. If they continually produce something that doesn't sell, they won't have a job anymore. And I'll raise you another part of this equation. If you pirated Assassin's Creed: Shadows because you hate Ubisoft or whatever, that game will take somewhere between 35 and 65 hours for most people to finish, according to How Long to Beat. That's 35 to 65 hours that you weren't spending in some other game, perhaps a game that respects your values enough that you'd part with your money to play. Maybe that's Kingdom Come: Deliverance II or The Alters or Knights in Tight Spaces; whatever your preferences are, there's some other game that also didn't get your money because you were playing that pirated game instead, and I picked those three examples because they're recent and run a range of different developer/publisher models while still being DRM-free.

The dogged ignorance of gamers as to the financial reality of game devs neglects the fact that launch profitability bonuses are the only thing that lifts many of them out of a minimum wage bracket.

Living in some fantasy land where never paying artists for their work magically results in them being compensated is pointless.

If you want to pirate, go ahead. I have. I don't pretend it's the "moral" thing to do.

Picture a neutral voter reading two different headlines. Importantly, picture the voter’s reaction. How they show support in legislative bodies is important.

1: Purchases of newer video games have gone way down. Consumers are reportedly pirating them instead.

“God, the younger generation is so incredibly entitled. People slave away on these things and they just want to steal them? Makes me think that ballot question they had about ‘Stop Killing Games’ was just about making them easier to steal. What pathetic thieves.”

2: Purchases of newer video games have gone way down. Consumers are reportedly buying many indie games instead.

“Wow, I should look into some of these ‘indie’ games if they’re so good. Sounds like there’s a lot of money in them now! If they spend that much on the hobby, I guess it makes sense they’d push that legislation about consumer rights.”