One of the worst issues of modern games is DRM and the actual ownership of games. There are some newer triple A games and even from smaller budget devs like (f)Atlus that implement denuvo into their PC releases. Denuvo is bad since you have to be tethered to some online server to play the game that you bought and if your Denuvo token happened to expire, you cannot play your game anymore unless you connect to the internet. On GNU/Linux, if you happen to use too many different proton (compatibility layer that is forked from WINE to be optimized for gaming) versions for a game, you can get locked out of that game for 24 hours. With the EA, Rockstar, and Ubisoft launchers, you have to connect periodically online to play your game even if it is single player(games like the crew from ubisoft launcher is now unplayable due to needing an online connections to play despite having single player modes). Small brains (especially on steam forums) may think this is a good thing because the internet is ubiqitious nowadays and if you are against game publishers having DRM in their games, that means that you want to pirate their games. But anyone with a decent amount of intelligence and common sense can see this is a bad idea because it opens the door of being reliant on the internet even if it is not necessary like with playing a single player game and gives game publishers a way to monitor their players since they cannot play them online. Nowadays on consoles and on PC, you usually have to agree to an end user license agreement to play a game.
Modern consoles are terrible. They are locked down and useds of these consoles have no control over them. You have to run a locked down OS to play games on these systems. Game console manufacturers make it difficult to jailbreak these consoles to mod them to run alternative software or to even install GNU/Linux. For example, Xbox has a pluton security chip that makes it nearly impossible to jailbreak and mod your console. With the Nintendo Switch 2 end user license agreement, you have to agree to them that they have the right to brick your consoles if you do any type of "unauthorized usage", you have to agree that you will not have the ability to file a class action lawsuit against them, and they have the right to monitor video and voice activity on the device[1][2][3]. It is also bad that game consoles are becoming more "digital" and more reliant on the internet. For example, many games do not come on the disk or cartridge any more. With the PS5 version of doom the Dark Ages which is a 100 GB game, it only contains 85 mb of data while the rest has to be downloaded online. The Nintendo Switch 2 has game key cards where you have to have internet to download the game. With newer models of the PS5 and PS5 Pro, you have to connect to the internet to verify an external PS5 disk drive in order to play physical games. But even if the full game comes on the disk, you may also need updates that fix bugs and issues with the game.
Steam in case you unlikely do not know Steam is a proprietary client and gaming distribution platform that is available on Windows, Macos, and GNU/Linux that sells and distributes commercial proprietary AAA and indie games. A lot of gaymers like to think Steam is the best distribution gaming platform on PC and Gabe Newell is out lord and savior. But that is far from the truth. For one, most games on Steam are not DRM free and you do not fully own the game and just have a "license" that can be revoked at any time or if you forgot your steam login credentials. Steam also is technically spyware and collects a lot of data. On their site that has a job listing for being a data scientist at valve, it says, "One thing we have at Valve is data. Lots and lots of data. We also have statisticians, and we always looking to add to our team. Statisticians at Valve use their outstanding empirical research skills to turn that data into insights that guide product decisions and improve our customers' experiences"[4]. If you care about online privacy, that is not good that valve hires employees to monitor player data collected from the steam client from various games. Also, steam has forced updates for the client and games. The only beneficial thing Valve has done in recent times is the development of the Proton compatibility which is forked from wine to focus specically on compatibility with Windows games on GNU/Linux while regular wine focuses on the compatibility of windows programs in general on GNU/Linux. Fortunately, it is free software and you do not have to use steam to use proton and can use something like Lutris, Heroic games launcher, or faugus launcher instead for using proton and there probably is a way to use proton itself without having to use a GUI program. Steam has also stopped supporting older versions of windows and recently older versions of GNU/Linux that have an older glibc version. This is bad since you cannot just use an older operating system if you are too lazy to update or do not want to use a new operating system (especially since Windows 11 forces Microsoft accounts and is spyware). And with something like a Gamecube which is a 20 year old console, you do not need to update the software on that device to play games on it and can continue to play games on it to this day.
Having a huge overfocus on graphics is bad. Nowadays, there are very incremental improvements in graphics but game devs expect people to fork over money for the newest hardware. For example, Doom Eternal on an rx 6600 runs at 138 fps on average on Max settings, while Doom the Dark Ages which barely looks any better runs at less than 60 fps on low settings[5][6]. Doom the Dark Ages having Denuvo and Ray tracing also plays a big part of having worse performance. Ray tracing is definetly a big cancer on modern gaming. There is very little improvement but the hardware demands are big. This means that an entry level GPU or console has a hard time achieving good performance in a game despite the game looking like it came out 10 years ago. I have heard that ray tracing is easier to implement than baked lightening in a game so talentless and lazy game devs force ray tracing and force gaymers to go buy a new GPU or Pro version of a console. This also makes it so completely competent hardware like the rx 5700 xt and gtx 1080 ti despite still being good gpus, are now obsolete for newer games since they do not have hardware ray tracing or mesh shaders
| New Games | Old Games |
|---|---|
| You need internet to play | You do not need internet to play |
| You have to download the game online even if it comes on a disk or cartridge | Full game came on the disk or cartridge |
| Kernel level anti cheats | No Kernel Level Anti Cheat |
| Has DRM. Especially bad if the game has Denuvo since you need a periodic online connection | No DRM |
| Game console manufactuer can brick or monitor the system since it has internet | Game console manufactuer cannot brick or monitor the system since it has no internet |
| You have to agree to an End User License Agreement to play a game | There is no End User license agreement |
| Games take up over 100 Gb of space. Newest Call of Duty probably needs more than 200 GB | Games took less than 10 gb during the 2000s. Games from the 90s like Ocarina of time took up 64 mb of space and Mario 64 took up 8 mb of space |
| You need an rtx 5090 or an rx 9070 xt to play the latest AAA game with no upscalers or frame generation | Can run on a Potato |
| Newer consoles cannot be jailbroken | Older consoles can be jailbroken |
| Game purchases can be revoked | Game purchases cannot be revoked |
| Relies on accounts if games were bought legally | Doesn't rely on accounts if games were bought legally |
One way of playing video games is to play on older game consoles that didn't rely on the internet. Since many older games are not for sale anymore, you probably have to either buy the older games online or jailbreak to put pirated roms on them(of course I wouldn't endorse this ;) ). Another option is to build a low end or entry level pc to mainly or exclusively play older games. This is probably a better option since there are a wide amount game available on PC especially if you include emulation. You are more in control of your device compared to a cucksole especially if you install GNU/Linux or BSD on your device. Since most games are playable other than anti cheat multiplayer slop, you can definitely get by with using GNU/Linux as a gaming system and have even seen video of people using wine/proton on FreeBSD to play windows games. There are many games that perform a bit better on wine/proton which means there is no reason to get used by Losedows. With emulation, you can have a huge backlog of older games. Also, there have been games like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, and Jak and Daxter that have been decompiled so you do not have to deal with the overhead and issues of emulation. It would also be better to avoid steam if possible and buy games from GOG or Ichio.io. If the game has something like denuvo, if it hasn't been cracked you should refuse to play it, if it has been cracked and you really want to play it, you could sail the seven seas (I would never do this of course ;) ).
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