Nowadays, the absolute vast majority of games that I play are shit tbh.
This is why I pirate games first to try them out. I wanna be very clear that if I think a game is good I buy it, no questions asked.
However, since most games don't have demos or trials, I don't want to feel like I've wasted money so I look to piracy so that I can try them out before making a purchase.
Totally solid option for some people, but not everyone. Depends on the game (some can’t be judged in two hours), your available time (can’t refund a game you bought a year ago that you only just now played), etc., and limits you to buying only from Steam. What if you’d rather buy from GOG or Humble Bundle?
1: No spam or advertising. This basically means no linking to your own content on blogs, YouTube, Twitch, etc.
2: No bigotry or gatekeeping. This should be obvious, but neither of those things will be tolerated. This goes for linked content too; if the site has some heavy "anti-woke" energy, you probably shouldn't be posting it here.
3: No untagged game spoilers. If the game was recently released or not released at all yet, use the Spoiler tag (the little ⚠️ button) in the body text, and avoid typing spoilers in the title. It should also be avoided to openly talk about major story spoilers, even in old games.
You can achieve the same with refunds on steam
Totally solid option for some people, but not everyone. Depends on the game (some can’t be judged in two hours), your available time (can’t refund a game you bought a year ago that you only just now played), etc., and limits you to buying only from Steam. What if you’d rather buy from GOG or Humble Bundle?