I only own one single Limited Run Games and it seems it was on a original BD for PS5. Sony would not license something different on their console. Still, this company seems shady i heard... in many cases. If it is a PC game... Limited Run Games obviously is not bound to a certain license and they could in theory even provide a cheap CD-RW or even just a Steam key in a box.
Xeshra: Not going to argue to much...
eric5h5: Kinda late for that, you wrote too many words already, most of them questionably related to reality as far as I can tell. However that doesn't change any facts: U.S. does not have VAT, Steam does have a rule about "It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers", which you can see for yourself if you clicked on the link that I provided. Unlike some people I don't just make stuff up in my head, it's all verifiable info. No amount of babbling will change any of this.
The key rule is "officially viewable" which is kinda enforcing a price parity (that does not really exist) with Steam (in house offers). On top of that there are limited keys, so a dev is not able to sell or give away countless keys "outside Steams influence".
However... according to what i heard, there is even a NDA which is done with the publishers... which is as well enforcing in many cases "price parity"... although, this agreement is not disclosed to the public, so we can not just link a "rule-page".
Some stuff is not "enforced" but rather "suggested" such as the regional-pricing. The publishers does not even need to adjust anything at all, Steam will take "care of" if a publisher is to lazy. It kinda is in some case passively enforced, yet... not "hard coded". Many publishers, guess the majority, may agree to those "suggestions", while rather a minority may adjust it after. Anyway, in the end Steam as well mostly will get what they want, even just by passive force.
You can believe what you want with the "sales tax" and VAT not being a sales tax at all, if it is soothing your nerves... okay for me.
