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by erinnh 1033 days ago
Absolutely agree.

I was starting to diversify my store fronts before Valve came out with the Deck.

But the release of it and the message it sent (that they take this seriously), made me reverse course and now I always buy my games on Steam, even if it costs 10 euro more.
2 comments
solardev 1033 days ago
FYI Steam has a ton of legit resellers with their own sales. The keys all activate on Steam.

Isthereanydeal.com

Valve will be fine :)

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hhmc 1032 days ago
FWIW many game developers would genuinely rather you pirate the game than buy keys on the ‘grey market’ sites. If you’re not going to pay anyone who deserves it, you might as well just not pay anyone..
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solardev 1032 days ago
The link I posted goes to the non gray market ones. https://www.pcgamer.com/pc-game-storefronts-compared-what-yo...

It's not the shady sites that resell free or international keys, etc. I specifically didn't link to those (they're easy to find, but of questionable ethicality and usability).

FWIW if the dev offers a Steam key on their own site, I'd just buy it that way. But otherwise if it's Steam or one of those authorized resellers, there's no reason to prefer Steam itself. GMG, Humble, Fanatical, etc. have great deals that let me try games I otherwise wouldn't bother with. If they turn out good, usually there's in app purchases and cosmetics I'm happy to support. IMHO this is a good form of price differentiation, letting the base game be widely available for people to buy but selling supporter packs and cosmetics for people who really like it.

(P2W is a different story)

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hhmc 1026 days ago
Got it, my misunderstanding!
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satvikpendem 1032 days ago
https://isthereanydeal.com/ is just a regular deal finding site, it's not a grey market site at all.
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erinnh 1033 days ago
Oh, I use those. But even then it’s sometimes more expensive to buy it on steam than say Uplay or Epic.
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ClassyJacket 1033 days ago
Same. I just hate that so many games I want are exclusive to Epic. It's like they're trying to make that store unpleasant to use.
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FirmwareBurner 1033 days ago
>I just hate that so many games I want are exclusive to Epic.

I miss the days when PC games weren't tied to some online webstore but came on a CD and the only DRM was a CD-key, no always online, no proprietary web store, just physical media that you could share with your friends.

Sure, Steam and GoG are probably the best kind of on-line webstore so far, bur I still love my collection of .ISO games that I can mount and play whenever I want without depending on any invasive DRM, accounts or internet connection.

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