logoalt Hacker News

LoganDarktoday at 2:58 AM2 repliesview on HN

This rhetoric comes up all the time. It goes like this: "if you don't like it, don't buy it." / "don't play it." / "find something else." It's everywhere: don't like non-repairable devices? Well don't buy those then. don't like proprietary operating systems? Well don't use those then. don't like games with anticheats? Well don't play those then. I've found this argument to be entirely antisocial because it completely ignores the biggest problem which is that the presence of those qualities entirely taints whatever it is attached to. The problem isn't that you can't use another operating system or play another game or buy another device. The problem is that operating systems and games and devices end up unusable. Sure you can start arguing about how most people don't care and will never care so it's not / will never be a problem, but at that point you are entirely leaving advice territory and entering cargo cult mentality.

Here's an example. ARC Raiders recently added Denuvo. There's basically no game like it that doesn't have anticheat. None. You can't just go play another similar game that doesn't have anticheat, you just don't get to play those games

Linux and some BSDs are basically the only free operating systems nowadays. Maybe HarmonyOS. Too bad most anticheats don't work with it, too bad most companies only release broken windows drivers and maybe mac drivers but not linux, etc etc. You just don't get to use that hardware or play those games or etc.

Good luck getting anything like any iPhone or Android flagship that has a replaceable battery. When you choose something like pocophone you are giving up every piece of the bleeding edge to choose outdated components for their repairability. Which is repairable but not fast. Also depending on your choice of vendor you might lose out of netflix / google pay / etc because of course.

Some like framework laptop can have better value for money because their upgrade model is to replace the entire computer (logic board) so they can still vertically integrate it / be decently fast. Nobody has tried that yet with phones

It's terrible that we even have to deal with this. I don't want to be forced to accept an anticheat for games. I don't want to be forced to use any operating system for anything (even though I genuinely believe mac is best). I don't want to be forced to replace a whole device when the battery dies etc. Or spend hours removing dozens of tiny screws in order to do it myself. And I certainly wouldn't put up with a slower device just because it's repairable or just because of nearly anything ever.

ARC Raiders once forced me to update windows because it was too outdated or something, one of the system DLLs expired from their allowlist or whatever. Nobody cares, I should be able to play on windows 10 as far as they're concerned. Windows updates are a hazard nowadays, asking someone to update is asking them to risk all their data. I do everything in my power to block windows update. I never asked and I never consented.

Meanwhile I update all my apple devices the day each beta releases because apple is not a stupid bonehead


Replies

pibakertoday at 3:07 AM

Comparing non reparable devices to games is a huge stretch. Not buying a phone or a car in many places means you can't get a job at all. But if you don't play games you lose little. There are more than enough games of all kinds to spend your time on. Plus you can always, you know, just stop staring at the screen and do something else.

show 1 reply
vel0citytoday at 3:32 AM

> I don't want to be forced to accept an anticheat for games.

I don't want to be forced to play with cheaters due to some people's philosophical concepts of what software I should be allowed to run on my computer when there's technology to radically minimize their numbers for the games I'd like to play.

If I want to have a computer that's locked down to be a platform for playing games online with a low likelihood of encountering cheaters shouldn't I have the freedom to be able to choose that?

show 2 replies