This website contains age-restricted materials including nudity and explicit depictions of sexual activity.
By entering, you affirm that you are at least 18 years of age or the age of majority in the jurisdiction you are accessing the website from and you consent to viewing sexually explicit content.
I don’t think he quite did that, actually. From memory he ran a few “shops”, but these didn’t really sell anything and were just download portals to install pirated games directly from the internet (rather than downloading to a PC first and then copying to an SD card or installing over USB). However, I think he did take donations for early access to new titles, which would have been hard to get elsewhere at first.
When video game companies accept money for early access to their games, that’s a sale. You give them money, they give you access. I’m not sure why that wouldn’t also apply here.
From your description, unless you were allowed to donate $0 for access, that sounds a lot like a sale to me.