I’ve decided to purchase XPlane 12 and was wondering if there are any advantages of Steam over Aerosoft or Laminar Research. 
I noticed Steam offers some freeware for XP but just not so crazy about having to start their app every time I use the sim so I’m leaning toward purchasing directly from LR. 
This platform seems to come with so much that took a king’s ransom (or at least an arch dukes) in addons to get the same look and functionality of my present P3DV5.4 Including some in depth freeware aircraft. 
Im wondering if there is a consensus on which store to go to. Opinions appreciated.

It's always best to support Laminar directly.  But I think Steam adjusts the price according to the country you're in.  

Laminar,

an then opt for the "federated account" login method when you install Xp12.

2 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

I’ve decided to purchase XPlane 12 and was wondering if there are any advantages of Steam over Aerosoft or Laminar Research. 
I noticed Steam offers some freeware for XP but just not so crazy about having to start their app every time I use the sim so I’m leaning toward purchasing directly from LR. 
This platform seems to come with so much that took a king’s ransom (or at least an arch dukes) in addons to get the same look and functionality of my present P3DV5.4 Including some in depth freeware aircraft. 
Im wondering if there is a consensus on which store to go to. Opinions appreciated.

 

While I do have Steam for a few sims that are only available there, I personally bought all my copies of XP direct from Laminar Research. More money for them to continue developing XP. 

Laminar Research.

More money goes to LR if you purchase direct from them.  

I bought from Steam as I like a one stop shop solution … I would happily pay an extra 30% on top of the price if LR decided they need to do that to recover the Steam fees.  In fact, I would be happy to do that with all the add-ons for XP12 rather than going to separate websites (and this isn’t just for XP12, any sim).  

I value my free time so one stop shops are my preference and avoid replication of CC info, security issues, and password management across multiple sites.

Perhaps LR need to look into some type of “market place” … similar to MSFS but improved (as in more vendor information and where the product is installed, documentation, update release notes, etc.).

 

10 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

Perhaps LR need to look into some type of “market place” … similar to MSFS but improved (as in more vendor information and where the product is installed, documentation, update release notes, etc.).

The good news is that it's not only on the list, but already in the pipeline 🙂

 

4 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

I noticed Steam offers some freeware for XP ...

... but I assume not as many as x-plane.org (not affiliated with x-plane.com, i.e. LR). Loooots of freeware, be it planes, scenery (mine too, BTW 😉), plugins, ...

5 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

I’ve decided to purchase XPlane 12 and was wondering if there are any advantages of Steam over Aerosoft or Laminar Research. 
I noticed Steam offers some freeware for XP but just not so crazy about having to start their app every time I use the sim so I’m leaning toward purchasing directly from LR. 
This platform seems to come with so much that took a king’s ransom (or at least an arch dukes) in addons to get the same look and functionality of my present P3DV5.4 Including some in depth freeware aircraft. 
Im wondering if there is a consensus on which store to go to. Opinions appreciated.

I will add, steam can and does occasionaly cause issues with xplane. Also if you are not using steam backing up xplane us as easy as copying the folder somewhere. Also allows you to run a full ver and beta ver at same time. Cant do that with steam

For benefits, steam is the better option.

Steam does not tie you to a single hardware when you purchase from them. So, if you have a desktop and a laptop you can install in both location without having to buy a second copy. You can't use in both locations at the same time of course.  Steam has remote play, where you can run the games on your most power computer and stream it to a weaker device (another room). Steam offers regional pricing, so it may be cheaper where you live if you are price sensitive. If you have other steam games, you can manage everything in one location. In general, I get all my games from steam unless there is a really good reason not to do so.

If you don't care about any of the above, then you can get it from Laminar as they won't have to give steam a cut of the sale. 

Very grateful to everyone for their input. It looks like I will buy XP12 directly from Laminar Research rather than use a third party, not that I have anything against Steam. FSX, FS2020 and lossless scaling are the only games I have on Steam so I’m not really bonded to them much. 
Thanks for the advice.

1 hour ago, mjrhealth said:

I will add, steam can and does occasionaly cause issues with xplane

Can you expand on the issues?  I haven’t run into any “yet”.

6 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

Can you expand on the issues?  I haven’t run into any “yet”.

Its not one issue, and  its not that often, Corrupt install, etc only seeing it 2 or 3 times from users on the org.

There have been recent situations in linux wherein Valve changed how they interface with the OS and broke access to the sim. LR had to adjust. Weird stuff requiring re-validation (to fix corruption) is.... weird. I do wonder if folks get into tweaking stuff and just break it without really knowing.

You also can't control sim updates. You update when Valve tells you to update.

1 hour ago, blingthinger said:

You also can't control sim updates. You update when Valve tells you to update.

What do you mean when they tell you to?

As far as I know, the developers have total control over when updates are pushed out on steam. If it's a really popular game that could possibly hammer the servers, then it might be rolled out in batches to reduces server load.