For non-Nintendo Switch games, I buy from GOG whenever possible. It does require different taste in games (I grew up on Quest for Glory, Space Quest, and King’s Quest). You get a tried-and-true game, DRM-free, usually for dirt cheap, and it probably doesn’t require an RTX video card. It’s not for everyone, but it’s worked great for me.
Calling it anti piracy is a bit of a stretch. It's just that companies realized that the printing of the physical media is no longer the point of no return from a development standpoint.
Right, that would be the "copy stamped at a later date which includes all the patches" version I was mentioning that you'd want to pick up if you own a new release copy.
So if you really want to preserve a game on disk, you pretty much have to pick up another copy stamped at a later date to include all of the patches.