itch.io

I forgot to mention a few important reasons people use pirate sites: mods, walkthroughs, tech support, and games that are otherwise unavailable commonly due to language, credit card, or censorship issues. Mods in particular have turned games I would have hated into great experiences by (reducing grind, opening different paths, and avoiding turnoff material). Some parts of the community are toxic entitled assholes, but most are just trying to enjoy the games they love and share them with as many people as they can.

I found your game through following another game on a pirate website, to answer your question from another place, people use pirate sites even for free games because it gets the word out, not everyone will come back to the dev, but those who love the game tend to! My financials mean I can only support so many devs and I prefer to make that decision with as much information as possible, so I tend to find the games I play on the pirate sites and then visit their (usually Patreon) pages of the games I love. The Elven Paladin is very cute and made me laugh, and has some great punishments that I thoroughly enjoyed! (though I still haven't managed to get all of the memories) I hope to see another great game from you in the future (possibly with some harsher punishment options?)!