It’s pirated because it’s not through official channels and has the DRM removed, including the requirement for the 2K launcher.
As for the rest of your question, so long as I’ve understood that mess properly, it’s the buyer’s problem when companies start taking away the games we’ve paid for becauae they’re hiding behind a license despite never disclosing the purchase had an expiry date or conveniently left out what that date is as time of purchase.
Control freaks laying out blank canvases for themselves and taking away your consumer rights one cut at a time. As a legitimate owner of the Mafia games on PC, I can report having a significantly better experience with pirated copies since they don’t require their terrible launcher.
You very much missed the point of my comment. After the “professional” response the public got when leaving very justified negative feedback on Starfield, I now don’t trust any comment supporting Gamebryo to not be a Bethesda employee. Nor was I advocating for shifting to Unreal, it was the next person who brought up a different engine which I said I’d prefer since it’s reliable. I don’t really care what engine the next Fallout is made with, for example, so long as it isn’t made in Gamebryo by a bunch of hacks.