As someone who doesn't participate in those, your comparison seems poor to me. Like my mom asked a while back if I'd get into valorant with her and my sister on weekends sometime, but I'm not going to dual boot or buy another computer just for this game. Why do they require rootkits for casual play? It'd be like bicycle manufacturers subjecting you to drug tests and access to random home inspections to ride around your neighborhood.

If you need to protect competitive play, keep it to actual competitions/make it optional for free play. I'm not giving you unrestricted access to my brokerage account, all of my files, all of my emails/text messages, etc. (which root access on my computer has) so you can prevent cheating in a Sunday night video game.

> Is it frivolous to not want dopers in cycling competitions?

There are a couple reasons to care about doping in professional sports, that don’t apply here.

First off, these matchmaking games are not real professional competitions. It is more like a pickup game; the stakes are essentially zero. Nobody cares if you dope for your pickup games or your weekend bike rides for friends (other than that that would be a ridiculous thing to do of course).

Second, professional athletes are celebrities. Abusing performance enhancing drugs sets a bad example for the kids watching. Because most people playing matchmaking games aren’t celebrities, they aren’t setting a bad example. And anyway, cheating in videogames has no side effects.

> If you think fairness in videogame competitions is frivolous then do not participate in them.

I mostly don’t. But I can spot wasted engineering effort when I see it, and will continue to call it out.