My nan has played Candy Crush for hundreds of hours and she's barely spent a pound on it.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. The fact that some games are F2P instantly makes every other flat-fee game worthless? What?
Here's your answer as to why this thread is so long: Jon Blow sent out two casual tweets of "hey, my game is being pirated a lot! Please don't do that!" and people with a bajillion agendas are using them to further their own causes because Blow already has a reputation built up around him. Complaining about piracy because the price is too high (you wouldn't be complaining about price if you didn't want the game, guys). Complaining about how PC is an inherently evil platform or whatever. Complaining about Blow being "pretentious." Complaining about puzzle games being "worth" inherently less than other genres.
Here is the real story: The Witness is a game that had a ton of labor put into it - eight years' worth, in fact - and the entire profits of Braid as its budget. Complaining that a game with a bevy of content isn't cheap just because it's in a certain genre or because its team is a certain size - I don't have many regrets saying that line of thinking is stone cold
stupid. Blow made a pair of tweets saying "please don't pirate my game if you could" and he set off a powder keg, resulting in a 33-page thread where people try and use this innocuous, polite request as an excuse to complain about grievances they already had.