Been wondering that myself. The kernel level anti-cheat has gone so far, it's all an attempt to turn an untrusted platform (someone's computer) into a trusted execution platform (a console).

I don't like it, the idea of software mandating a very specific computing environment or else it refuses to run. It takes agency away, and will bleed into other types of software beyond just games (which we already see on mobile).

I like gaming on PC, but I will continue to refuse to install/play any game that requires this level of anti-cheat. There has to be a better way than forcing users to install what is effectively a rootkit to play.

Microsoft’s corporate strategy is almost the exact opposite of this though. It’s that “everything is an Xbox” ie they are massively shifting away from the special-purpose hardware to anything being an xbox if it runs windows. I would be somewhat surprised if microsoft-made consoles even exist in a generation or two’s time.

I'm convinced it is as well. It also stops these very popular games from running on Linux which is finally mounting a concerted push into PC gaming thanks to Valve.