# 99% of this hit Steam games’ players are pirates, dev says

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/99-of-this-hit-steam-games-players-are-pirates-dev-says/
- Published: 2026-07-23T16:54:58+00:00
- Updated: 2026-07-23T22:49:47+00:00
- Original publisher: Polygon
- Original article: https://www.polygon.com/cozy-steam-game-burgies-cozy-kitchen-piracy-stats-dev-profits/
- Topics: Entertainment, Gaming

## Key points

- Developer estimates 99% of recent players used pirated copies.
- The game still broke sales records after going viral.
- Piracy remains stressful as sales have fallen 40%.

## Summary

The developer of Burgie’s Cozy Kitchen says that 99% of recently observed Steam players appeared to be using pirated copies, despite the game remaining commercially successful. The case challenges the simple assumption that widespread piracy inevitably makes a game unprofitable, while also showing the pressure it can place on a small studio.

Burgie’s Cozy Kitchen is an early-access incremental game whose anti-piracy mode makes progress slower and jokes about non-paying customers with pirate imagery and sea shanties. Developer HeyNau identified the scale of piracy through backend data, finding 22 of the last 25 accounts repeatedly referenced a piracy-promoting Chinese website, later widening the sample to 100 and estimating 99% were pirates. The game broke its sales record in June 2026 after its piracy mode went viral, and its peak concurrent players nearly doubled a month later, but the developer says sales have since fallen 40% and that managing piracy remains stressful.

---
Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.