It's not FOSS and has the worst payment system possible (donate to the dev then send him an email, and he will give you a license for a single device), so don't feel bad pirating it.
It's totally astroturfed. I never heard of this game until two days before release, and most comments about it are "it's good if you ignore the story and gameplay".
Some words have a different meaning, they use a lot of English words, and have a unique accent. We Frenchmen can understand québécois with minimal difficulty.
OSS came first, then got replaced by ALSA after it became proprietary.
PulseAudio is a userspace audio server to which programs connect. It manages audio settings per app, then sends everything to ALSA. JACK is the same but with a focus on low latency.
PipeWire is a modern drop-in replacement for both, and also has support for video on Wayland.
$1000 for a three bedroom apartment doesn't sound that outrageous to me.