–Phase–

I suppose you could think of it that way, though buying it on Steam, even if you’re not going to play that version, does help support the continued development of the game overall. Their Patreon donation stream was apparently waning before the Steam version released, plus there was the family health scare Tarn revealed at the time of the announcement too. I’d prefer the entire project not get put on a long hiatus because the devs got unexpectedly bankrupted by the absurd healthcare costs prevalent here in the US. And the fact that they didn’t take down the free version after the Steam release on its own shows that they didn’t make that version for the sake of greed.

Judging by the username… probably yes, lol.

It also adds a lot of quality of life stuff you would have to mod the original to get access to, though as I understand it, the Lazy Newb Pack mods include most of those QoL changes. Though, them being integrated into the game itself will almost always be smoother than requiring the installation of a mod.