Comment by awedisee

Based take little dude. Gamers all care very much about "openness". Did you forget that in 1985 Nintendo created the first hardware-based security system designed to prevent unlicensed and low-quality games from running.

Gamers used to own the games they purchased via cassettes, disks, and later even digital copies. Now through platforms like Epic and Steam you are provided a digital "license" to play the game.

ALL of this speaks to the "openness" of gaming and it is ALL important to gamers.

As previously stated though, game creators have been forced to choose the platforms they can create their games for. By the 90s the majority of personal computers were running MS-DOS and Steve Jobs had a base take on games being "toys" and did not belong on Macintosh products.

Fast forward to the early Oughts and you see games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush making millions by producing games on ARM technology which really pushed the entire industry forward to focus multi-platform gaming outside of the tradition routes of either PC or console or both.

Furthermore triple A studios led the charge and made big decisions that smaller studios would follow until around the release of Cyberpunk 2077. This in my opinion was the big turning point that gamers decides to act against large studios from all of the decision making that has turned a relative open system to a closed system.

The invention of the Proton protocol to allow gaming on Linux Machines is FORCING industry to ABIDE by the wishes of the customer. The gamers. The gamers are FINALLY winning!

This isn't just about openness on operating systems and being able to own the thing you purchase. Its also about efficiency. Windows is a bloat farm that has what feels like a million service hosts running in the background sending telemetry data to NOT me. Furthermore, if windows is not optimized to use your hardware efficiently, why would your favorite game?

Changes like the Proton protocol are bridges to re-align the supply/demand curve by forcing the customer and producer back to the negotiation table so the gamers voice can be heard.

In closing, gamers have had limited options due to technological limitations, vendor lock ins, corporate anti-competitive practices, monopoly exploitation, or predatory pricings.

With inventions like ARM and Proton protocol, gamers have a louder voice to force game makers implement "openness" in their products.