With Sony's scheming and this, the high-end console industry is killing itself.
It probably isn't far off where AAA games are only available via streaming simply because not enough people are willing to buy $1500 consoles and $100+ games.
It also doesn't really matter if they have kernel stuff or not, unless you game on a different user a user space process can already read all your files and even memory of your processes.
That's not a thing on the default config of any mainstream distro I'm aware of; everyone restricts attaching a debugger and similar to root by default these days.
But AC is kinda useless on Linux anyway, might as well have none.
Previously https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/10/epic-games-launcher-pr...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50088762
The entire point is to lock down a user's linux install so that they can't interfere with the anticheat.
The computers are ours. We are the gods of our digital realms. Their software is running under our control. This "take it or leave it" nonsense doesn't really fly. Adversarial interoperability means there's any number of options available to us.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...
The notion that people would willingly give up this godlike power just to play online video games without cheaters is one of the saddest ideas I've ever come across. Gamers would reduce our personal computers to consoles without a shred of guilt. I barely have words to express how I feel about that.
Not a problem. It's their computer, they can edit the game's memory to freeze their character's hitpoints or look through walls if they really want to. As the owners of the machine, it's their god given right.
> People are breaking the social contract of competitive games.
This is not even remotely close to being worth sacrificing our freedom and leverage over. Let it happen. Play with friends you know and trust instead of internet randoms.
> Booting into a special environment just for competitive games would allow both to coexist.
There will never be such a "special environment" for games. Every government and corporation under the sun wants this for much more sinister reasons. The notion that this will be limited to video games is laughable. Video game are merely how they are selling this subversion to you.
Either your computer is yours or it's not. And if your computer allows strangers to set up an untouchable embassy within your system where they can do anything they want and remain forever beyond your reach, then it's not really your computer, is it? It's the corporation's computer, they're just generously allowing you to use it... Provided you follow their silly policies and rules.
The abuses that will materialize if we allow them to get away with this nonsense will put science fiction to shame.
This is happening irregardless of what your wants are. Booting into a self contained game image allows both to co exist, rather than Epic and such locking down normal distros.
Coexist? That's total nonsense. This is merely a temporary solution for them. The end game is the total destruction of computing freedom as we know it today. Video games are just the first thing they will take away from you. They also want your encryption, your local AIs, your torrents, your adblockers, your emulators, anything and everything that harms their bottom line and subverts their laws in any way.
Soon you will no longer be allowed to boot into anything that will give you any form of control. It's the war on general purpose computing, cheating in online games is completely irrelevant next to that. The democratization of cryptography allows citizens to defeat police, judges, even literal spies. Computers are too subversive to allow us citizens to own them, they think we should only have computers that run a restricted set of government signed executables. It's the end of everything the word "hacker" ever stood for.
What makes it especially hilarious in a sad way is the fact that this is what makes personal computers truly special. Consoles are just locked down computers, we're the ones who have freedom. Considerable effort is spent on jailbreaking consoles precisely to restore that freedom. Yet the PC gamers seem to be almost eager to "coexist" with these hostile corporations whose entire mission is to reduce our computers to appliances.
If you want to see what happens when you compromise on this, all you have to do is look at mobile operating systems. They're all owned by corporations and governments, and it's enforced by hardware remote attestation. Install a custom system where you're in control? Attestation fails. You're banned from everything, you get no service anywhere, you are ostracized from digital society, you become a second class citizen. Mark my words: one day we will need remote attestation just to connect to the internet.
Not everyone plays online games, but most people need communications apps, banking apps, government apps. Our "free distros" will be nothing but paperweights soon if we don't find a way literally outlaw remote attestation. I think people are really underestimating what's truly at stake here.
I say this as someone who plays games that are significantly aided by remote-attestation-based anticheat: it's a beachhead that we will regret ceding.
I advocated so much against it. I was so sad when I saw that virtually nobody cared. It seems games are more important than freedom.
If you want true freedom, you should follow Richard Stallman.
There is a problem though: he talks about software freedom, not computer freedom.
Right now we can make free software ourselves and enjoy the freedom that brings, but the war on general purpose computing rages on and it threatens to invalidate all of our efforts. Free software is completely pointless if our computers start refusing to run it.
We need to enshrine computer freedom into law and literally ban stuff like remote attestation. We also need distributed computer manufacturing technology so that normal people can simply create their own free computers at home just like they can create free software at home.
As for Valve itself, many probably won't find Valve that great when the new management generation takes over, and is no longer Gabe calling the shots.
Love my steam deck, but the dock/handheld experience isn’t as seamless as switch and flipping from desktop to gaming mode had a like 15% chance of freezing the device until maybe 18-24mo ago. There was also that update issue for years if you left your home network.
Xbox/Switch/Playstation are incredibly reliable and turnkey (and until recently, a low upfront cost). It’s why people turned to them by the millions.
The problem was never the hardware. Consoles and PCs were both a compromise, a trade between convenience, flexibility, price. The easy to use devices from Steam are more console than PC and that's fine. Nobody has a problem with this as long as games run. If the game runs well I don't care about the CPU, RAM, OS, or that I can't upgrade them. I don't spend money on RAM for the sake of plugging things in, I spend it because the system needs it. The Steam Machine is a step towards "consolification" from a PC perspective. The Deck is a true console. So saying "finally consoles are gone" should be more "consoles are dead, long live consoles".
The big problem that only recently got prominence is ownership of the games. Take away the brand loyalty and you'll see that Steam isn't really doing much here. But I care about being able to buy and sell my games, or play them for as long as a compatible system is available. In this regard the Steam store is not much different from console stores. It offers some quality of life features but the core is still missing. It's not my game anymore and this comes with a lot of implications that aren't mitigated by running Linux or having RAM slots.
That entire paragraph makes it obvious that I'm talking about hardware. From the first sentence that spells it out, to talking about upgrading RAM. On the software front, the "open" PC ecosystem is heading in a bad direction for consumers too. So what if I can install from any store if they all rent me the same game at the same price? The difference between Valve and Epic is that one has a loyal following of promoters but in the end I don't own the game, I'm only renting it. And we're always one step away from rentseeking and or losing access even to those rentals.