PC Gaming

What's cheaper?

Depends on the sales, nobody buys games without sale (excluding indie)

I will say it's the cheapest for value when considering the services offered. Coming from consoles, I have found for years I can almost always get a game on PC for Steam either through Steam or countless other sites ridiculously cheaper than any console, including sales. That alone is nice, and slightly cheaper on lesser launchers does nothing for me.

I've even done the math in the last few years comparing prices on PC to sale prices on Playstation and my PC build has essentially been paid for in savings difference. I cannot tell you how many times I've bought a game on Steam or maybe Fanatical for like $2.99 when on Playstation it was on SALE for $29.99 and it's nuts.

As for Steam versus others on PC like Epic, it then becomes about the service. Initially it was nice to have a central launcher, then the free cloud saves. Over the years, the Steam custom controller profiles have become a pricelessly useful feature, and sharing/borrowing others control profiles, and then the Steam Link (physical box) to play across my house and later the Steam Deck have added immense amounts of quality to my gaming experience.

Also on rare occasion Steam Workshop has been nice, and saving my own Notes attached to games, Proton to make old games work, the first Steam game I ever bought was delisted from the store a decade ago and is still in my account and downloadable, central source for news for a game (the updates), the community content for games, ability to refund games, ability to gift games, ability to ignore games in the store, and on and on.

Finally, we're on the third console gen since I first started my Steam account, and I can still see and play all of my Steam games since the beginning on a PC that is NOT my original PC I started with. Whereas on Playstation I absolutely cannot play my PS3 games on my PS5, and for sure Nintendo wants us to rebuy the same games for another console gen.

All of it adds up and just makes Steam (currently) better for me than all the alternatives and it's why I have not bought anything on my Playstation for years now and will likely not be buying the next console.

Wahr. Wobei ich.io auch Linux native Spiele anbietet (nur über die Webseite und ohne Proton compatability layer, also wirklich nur native Spiele)