Do you? You’re the one claiming they would have to work for free.
That right there is a very nice example of the McNamara fallacy.
Sure. How many of the remaining 80-85% would have bought the DLC if they couldn’t benefit from free items in some way? That’s the problem with oversimplifying everything with a handful of numbers.
I don’t actually know the answer to that question, because it depends on many other factors, some of which can be expressed in numbers I don’t have access to, and others which aren’t purely numerical.
If I had to guess, it would depend on the PVP/PVE split in the playerbase. PVE players would probably just shrug and not buy the stuff. Those who wanted it, bought it anyway. Those who didn’t wouldn’t be persuaded by entitlement checks.
On the other hand, PVP players would have bought every damn DLC. We’re talking about people who cried “DLCs are P2W” because Nemedian doors and/or gates are shaped differently. They would have bought the shіt out of all this stuff, and they would have raised a shіtstorm on the forums. A portion of them would have left, but we both know that those who actually leave are a tiny fraction of those who scream about how they’re leaving and never coming back.
At any rate, none of the above changes the fact that “12 people shared what 1 bought” is an extremely naive oversimplification. People didn’t stop pirating music and movies because of the legal crackdown. They stopped when they were offered a reasonable alternative.