Unless you plan on implementing any other stronger DRM than the steam provided one. I wouldn't bother releasing a safe version.

It's brutally simple to crack steam drm on your own. You just need the clean files from cs.rin.ru/forum or something.

Unsafe cracks will be published elsewhere anyways if your game is popular enough.

I suggest you just don't add any DRM at all.

To your point, If I really can't afford a game I'll pirate it and when I can get those games for $5 - 10 I'll pick them up on steam or gog for as much convenience as anything. I'm not trying to get a free ride but my appetite for more art is greater than I could possibly afford.

Key resellers are really, truly awful. In many cases the keys are purchased from legitimate sites using stolen credit card numbers. The key resellers plead ignorance as to where the keys come from, but it's an open secret at this point. If you don't want to pay the Steam/Gog price, piracy is less awful because you won't be fueling a criminal enterprise and there's no chance your Steam/Gog account will get a stolen key revoked.

Credit card fraud and software keys actually ends up being paid for by the rest of us. Fraudulent transactions and chargebacks lead to higher merchant fees, and those costs end up getting passed on to legitimate purchasers.

Most of the keys are obtained illegally (stolen accounts and/or credit cards) so eventually the money gets taken back. So not only was the game stolen but the indie has to go through processing the takeback which costs them money on top of it.

And since the takeback issue can occur the person purchasing could lose their game without even realizing it and then complain to the devs when it wasn't even their fault.

You're basically double-dipping and ensuring that actual costs are involved.

edit: brain fuzzy. Chargeback is the word.

downloading a repack made by some Russian somewhere in 15 parts from 5 different filesharing websites

Never had this problem with fitgirl but rinru users unfortunately end up using some awful rate limited site usually. It's always a pleasant surprise when it's a drive link tho

The latter option does leave you with the game in your Steam account though

This is why I use them. Someone hosted a zomboid server on here but it's set to steam only, I don't want to give any money to valve if possible and I'm definitely not buying the game a third time at full price so I just used a gift card and got it for ~$7.

Honestly if I end up in a similar situation I'll probably just do it again

the listed ones have contracts with publisher to get legit keys where the developer gets it share too

At a legitimate website, the developer(s) and publisher(s) make money for each key purchased and every key is legal to own, so there is little chance of a key being revoked and your account banned on your chosen storefront. At a grey market seller like G2A, they can sometimes get their keys illegally (credit card theft, stolen accounts, etc.). So because GMG, Fanatical, Humble, IndiaGala, etc. are all legitimate resellers, they buy their keys directly from the source (usually the publisher or storefront where they are redeemed, but that's just my guess). Apologies if that's not what you were asking.

Those are all official seller stores.

They'd fall under Steam.

G2A would technically fall under Steam too, except they have a history of buying stolen keys and reselling them (over and over again).

Here's a dev explaining it: https://lemmy.ml/comment/2618947

Apparently they do chargebacks, which costs the gamedevs money.
This is something that should have been in the opening post.
It explains why using these sites actually causes harm.
Instead of getting a game at a reduced rate without harming the dev much (just losing a sale) you're actually harming the dev.

This is something I didn't know and now I'll look more at discounted games on official platforms instead of these key sites.

Yes.

They steal a credit card, buy the game with it, and sell the game. Then the owner of the credit card (or the credit card issuer) discovers this and demands a refund from the game seller. Processing this refund requires extra work and additional money from the game seller.

For a longer explanation, with successful results, you can read https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303 .

I don't think the majority of those keys are from stolen credit cards. A lot of them are just purchased in countries where the game is extremely cheap then resold for a profit.

Their website.

runningwithsissors.com