> The alternative was conceding the space to cheaters and watching games that players love, and that required massive resources to develop and maintain, degenerate into a hellscape of cheating that real players refuse to play.

This was a key reason for Valorant's success. Anti-cheat is a necessary evil to make online games fair. I think if someone wants to suggest otherwise, they would need to demonstrate a superior solution. Companies truly do not want to be in the business of messing with your kernel, so if another solution exists—one that is actually superior in cheat detection and prevention—without a kernel extension, they'll do it.

I'll provide another example of why companies would rather not do it unless they have to. Kernel extensions usually require a system restart. Requiring a restart adds a huge drop off point to a conversion funnel and costs the game some amount of players who may have stuck around, and some players, like the ones here who are upset about it, won't even bother because they are outright opposed. Games would gobble up a solution that worked and didn't have that baggage.