Generally speaking, you're best off using official channels for any video game purchases. There are exceptions when it comes to delisting and preservation and whatnot, but the simple fact is Steam, GOG, and others protect your investment more than third-party resellers, and one indie dev is reminding people of that by deactivating illegitimately gotten copies of their game.
The repair shop sim ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs managed to shift 300,000 copies in its first week. An incredible result for a small team, but it's been tainted slightly because a small percentage of them have been blocked by publisher tinyBuild because they were ill-gotten keys.
"We just revoked 649 game keys for ReStory most of which were confirmed to have been sold on shady key reseller websites," Alex Nichiporchik, CEO of publisher tinyBuild, said on Twitter. "If you bought the game off shady reseller websites and lost access, contact said shady reseller website."
To make his gripes here clear, he shares a news story from 2016, where tinyBuild says it lost $450,000 due to key resellers. A decade later, and it's still a problem.
"We identified the leak and will not be working with that part moving forward," he adds. "Also just buy games on Steam. If a deal looks too good to be true, it's probably not true."
This is fundamental to how these sites operate - they tend to offer keys at discounted rates compared to proper channels. In some cases, they operate on a lottery, where you pay in a certain amount and can end up with a major triple-A release, or something smaller. Either way, it's money the devs and publishers are losing out on, and you're risking your funds on a platform with very little in the way of customer support.
For what happened here, Nichiporchik explains that scalpers bought copies on Steam priced cheaper in certain regions. If you release a game on Valve's store and don't set the price in each region individually, universal pricing creates discrepancies where this can happen. These were then being sold on less regulated marketplaces.
Remember, most games aren't coming from huge corporations. Any lost sales can hurt them. Nichiporchik clarifies afterward that some Green Man Gaming copies have been lost in the mix, which will be restored in time. "If you bought the game through GMG - a replacement key is on its way! No action needed on your end," he says.
