Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Lets see:

• Good prices if you are a bit patient and want to support devs
• seamless linux integration nowadays - Proton is a blessing!
• DRM is the decision of the publisher - not required by steam in any way - and the offered standard DRM is so weak that it doesn't really exist while also respecting you as a costumer (no hardware binding, no limited activations and so on - if a game has that, it's the publishers bad decision)
• steam workshop is the easiest way to get into modding by far
• autoupdater for all your games (and mods when using workshop)
• integrated overlay offering guides and discussion forums
• steam input is awesome and powerful, while not being overly complicated, and also works on non-steam games (the overlay does too - opening a game wiki in the overlay is pretty handy)
• switching between offered builds/betas takes 3 clicks
• steamworks making multiplayer easy - rightclick your friend and invite into the running game
• discovery queue is a pretty good feature - i tend to run one or two every month just to keep up on whats new and up my alley
• creates a news and patchnotes stream out of your library and store follows, making sure you always are informed even if a game isn't currently installed, for example when you are waiting for some specific feature / content in a game
• easy managing of your installed games with a good overview of used space and when you last used that 80GB behemoth of a game
• Steam inhome streaming is pretty good and readily available, and also enables mixed remote/local couch gaming; i prefer moonlight/sunshine, but it's deffo more involved than clicking on the "Stream" button.
• Family sharing makes my library availabe to 5 other people free of charge

Don't get me wrong, i am someone who collects game repacks in large volumes, so i am completely fine with piracy as it is. but i also want to give game devs that have created something special financial security so they can continue doing their thing. That means games that i actually want to continue playing after testing them out sooner or later land in my library, at a price point that i a) can afford, since i am a small time pensioner and b) that i perceive as fair for the product in comparison to how much joy the game brought me. My wishlist is primarily a "reminder to buy because they deserve it" list. In some cases this can even result in paying the full new release price (Baldurs Gate 3 e.g, and CP2077 - this has more to do with my fandom towards the pen&paper RPG tho, and i am happy that the game has evolved to something where i can say i am proud i paid full price)