Nah you were right. Factorio devs have gone on record saying that they'll never put their game on sale. Something to the effect that it lowers the value of the players who bought it earlier. That said, before it reached 1.0 it was cheaper. The closer to release the higher the price had gone. Think I got it way back when it was $20.

I feel you on the difficulty. Mostly it took me just taking a leap into it and deciding that if I lost a little money on it no biggie as I've gotten so much for free over the years. Biggest thing that tipped me into finally trying was black Friday sales from Usenet providers. Getting a pretty dang cheap deal and then fiddling with sabnzb, getting my first download going was awesome. Especially the speeds. And 99% of the things I'm looking for being available. Even really old stuff that is pretty hard to find active torrents of. Would highly recommend.

Dang, that'd be cool. Didn't even know that was a thing. Probably before my time on the internet. Mostly got connected in the late 2000s and haven't ever heard that was a thing.

Usually yeah. I still pirate them but use it as an extended demo. Still more than 80% of those I drop in less than a couple hours and never play again. Then I'm just happy I didn't pay for them. Others though like Factorio and Stardew valley I had to buy after pirating. They were just to good not to own.