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ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs launched on 6 August 2026 and within days settled into Steam's "Overwhelmingly Positive" bracket, with more than 95% favourable ratings across several thousand reviews. It is made by Mandragora, published by tinyBuild, and its list price on Valve's store is €19.99. So far, a textbook indie launch. What turned it into news isn't the score: it's that its publisher revoked 649 copies sold outside official channels, caught legitimate buyers in the crossfire, and started an uncomfortable argument about where you should buy this game. We are a price comparison site, so that argument points straight at us. Here is the whole thing, including the part that doesn't flatter us.
A repair sim with a score almost nobody reaches
The pitch is as small as it is specific: you run an electronics repair shop in mid-2000s Tokyo, taking apart, diagnosing and bringing back to life the gadgets of that era. Consoles, phones, music players, the sort of hardware plenty of players held in their hands as kids. There is no pressure and no final boss: there's a workbench, a screwdriver and a queue of customers with their own stories.
That mix of very specific nostalgia and calm manual work is what explains the reviews. It's also worth saying what it isn't, because it saves refunds: it's not a long campaign, there's no combat, and the loop is repetitive by design. If that reads like a flaw, this isn't your game. If it reads like a plan for the evening, the score will make sense.
What tinyBuild said, and what has been pinned on it since
This is where it pays to slow down, because the headline going around has stretched along the way. The verifiable facts are these.
tinyBuild revoked 649 ReStory keys. CEO Alex Nichiporchik announced it publicly and explained that most had been confirmed as sold on shady key reseller sites. His advice was blunt and simple: only buy games on Steam, and if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably isn't.
Then it blew up in his face. Among those 649 keys were legitimate purchases made at Green Man Gaming, a long-standing authorised retailer, not a marketplace. People who had paid at a perfectly official shop found the game revoked in their library. tinyBuild backtracked, worked with the retailer to reissue keys to everyone affected, and owned the mistake without hedging: this one is on us, sorry.
The real cause wasn't resale as such, it was regional pricing. The publisher's own explanation is the genuinely useful part of this story: resellers were buying Global Steam keys in countries where the game costs considerably less, then listing them as if they were Europe, UK or US keys. The hole wasn't in the shops; it was that one identical key was worth the same everywhere and cost wildly different amounts depending on where you bought it.
And now the part almost everyone has reported wrong: the "I'd rather you pirated it" line is not from tinyBuild or Mandragora. It came from a different indie studio with no connection to ReStory, in the same conversation and in the heat of the moment, and they walked it back afterwards. ReStory's publisher never invited anyone to pirate the game: it told you to buy it on Steam. That is not the same thing, and the difference matters when someone is deciding what to do with their money.
What is the grey market, and how is it different from an authorised store?
"Grey market" does not mean illegal. It means the game is sold outside the circuit the publisher has authorised, usually on platforms where the seller isn't the shop but a private individual or third-party business posting a listing there. The platform provides the shop window and the payment system; the seller provides the key and sets the price.
The difference is one of origin, not appearance: an authorised retailer receives its keys from the publisher, under contract and with a revenue split; on a third-party listing nobody can guarantee where that key came from. That is exactly what the 649 revocations exposed.
| Authorised store | Third-party listing | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sells to you | The shop itself, under contract with the publisher | An outside seller inside the platform |
| Where the key comes from | The publisher | Not always possible to know |
| Does the studio get paid | Yes | Only on the first sale, not on the resale |
| If something goes wrong | You claim from the shop | You claim from the seller, with the platform refereeing |
Both kinds appear in our comparison, and we label them: Steam and Fanatical are listed as official stores for this game, while third-party marketplaces are identified as such. That information is visible before you click anything, and in this particular case it's the information that decides.
Standard, Steam Gift and Steam Account are three different things
Sort the listing by price and the top line is usually the cheapest by a distance, and almost never what people think they're buying. These are the three formats you'll see on ReStory and what each one means.
| Format | What you get | Price now |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | A code you activate on your Steam account. The game stays yours | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS10) |
| Steam Gift | A copy sent to you as a gift from another account. Also ends up in yours | € (with coupon AUGGOC10) |
| Steam Account | Not a code at all: access to somebody else's account that already owns the game | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
That last format is what makes the listing look like a bargain and the one to steer around unless you really know what you're doing: the progress isn't yours, it doesn't sit with your library or your friends, and whoever set the account up still holds the credentials. It's also the closest thing to what the publisher was pointing at.
What if I'd rather the money reached the studio?
Then buy it on Steam, and you don't need to leave this page to do it: Steam appears in our own comparison as one more line in the listing, official price alongside all the others. We don't hide it or leave it out to make the alternatives look better.
It's the option the publisher explicitly asked for, and the only one that guarantees three things at once: Mandragora and tinyBuild get their full cut, the key will never be revoked, and official sales reach you without depending on anyone. In exchange you pay list price.
And if budget is what's calling the shots — a perfectly legitimate reason — the middle path exists and it's the one we recommend: stay with an official store from the listing, in Standard format, with the region that matches you. You save against list price, the studio still gets paid, and you don't have to trust a stranger. With those two boxes ticked you can buy Restory key without any nasty surprises.
Where the decision lands
ReStory is a small, very well made game that has ended up as the poster child for a problem far bigger than itself. Its publisher didn't ask you to pirate it: it asked you to buy it on Steam, got the revocations wrong, and fixed them.
The practical conclusion fits in three lines. If you want to back the studio unconditionally, Steam. If you want to pay less with a safety net, an official store from the listing in Standard format. And if what caught your eye was the very cheapest line, now you know what's behind it. All of that is visible in the comparison before you buy Restory key.
I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember, and for the last 14 years I have been making life easier for other gamers. CEO and co-founder of Gocdkeys.
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