bought hades 2 straight up without reviews and knowing it's gonna be wonky early access, just because the dev has a history of honest and inspired banger games. 😎👍
keep in mind that most profiteering rats pile onto the biggest cash cow games. indie scene is better than ever these days
It's not the cost. I've not pirated anything since Steam and GOG came along. It's just that games nowadays want you to be online all the time, force you to open accounts you don't want, try to sell you in game items (that's a brilliant idea to get money from certain types of people, a bit like religion, do congratulations to whoever came up with that).
I want games to be single player playable, offline, start to finish. I'll buy expansion packs if the game is worth it. It's it too much to ask?
I'm not patient because of cost, I'm patient because new releases are buggy, and they're usually stable by the time their price drops. They're basically rewarding my patience...
I'm waiting neither due to bugs nor because high price. I'm waiting because adult life happened and I simply don't have time to play. I still have even games I bought decade(s) ago and I haven't touched yet.. Yeah, yet, definitely yet. Will try to insert appropriate meme later.
In before someone tries to guilt trip you for that because "developers aren't getting money from stolen keys" and the developer isn't an indie developer but a studio owned by Microsoft or EA...
I wouldn't. There was a dev ( I forget which game, but def indie ) that said the pirated keys from those dodgy sites actually ended up costing them money, and they would've been happier if people just pirated the game instead if they really didn't want to pay for it.
I think it had something to do with credit card fees
Edit: found this on reddit
Grey Markets are often done by credit card scammers which results into chargebacks by the credit institute resulting in processing fees for the producer of the game or even getting them cc banned.