A bit more complex, but avoiding Microslop install Bazzite, comes with steam preinstalled get to gaming

Food for thought:

Regarding prices, PC gaming has a MUCH higher up-front cost but MASSIVELY lower ongoing costs. A gaming PC, especially these days, is going to cost as much as or more than two or three consoles. However, console games are damned expensive and never get any cheaper. PC games often come in bundles that can make them cheaper. Humble Monthly is ~$1 per game most months. Indie games are often released at <$20 and get cheaper if you want to wait. PC games generally get cheaper if you wait. Epic has a free game every week, and steam parapetetically has games go free or into steep discount too. There are also many great FOSS games, all priced as free, most with the option to kick back a bit of cash if you like them. Modding is also generally free, and can turn one game into effectively 50. (e.g. Minecraft is one game. Modpacks turn it into almost a completely new game. TFC based modpacks affectively do it all over again. And a few others do it again. One copy of MC effectively becomes multiple games, possibly dozens.) All that means to get 100 games, you could be looking at a difference between paying ~$6,000 for console games and paying less, but possibly even literally nothing for the PC, depending on what games. It will basically never be more expensive for the PC version, though.

Consoles only win out in two places. 1. You will never get a PC as capable as a console for the price of a console. (At least not unless Valve does something truly amazing with the Steam Machine) so the upfront cost is far lower. And 2. Consoles let you hit the power button and spin up more or less straight into the game. If you are a child, or have one, having access to the system outside of games can break your ability to play games, so a console is locked down to prevent that. That’s not to say they will run perfectly, just that you/your kid won’t be the reason things are breaking.

Install Steam, install game, click play, play.

This is an oversimplification, but the gist of how it works. This also assumes you know how to use a PC generally.

There’s WAY too many good games to be worried about playing the latest most expensive cutting edge slop. A cheap gaming PC from the marketplace of your choosing and a new SSD is all you need.

Piracy is also generally very safe, if you find a certain reputable russian steam forum, they have a very strict vetting policy. If you’re that cautious about that sort of thing, you can always download the clean Steam files and apply the crack (drag and drop) yourself.

It’s the closest you can get to the source without being in the scene.

New consoles are expected after the RAM crisis, whenever that ends, but I believe you’re right about the futureproofing aspect. The consoles of today are capable of a LOT, the only thing that will get devs to stop releasing games for them is if Sony/Nintendo take a page from graphics card companies and stop selling them.

Obligatory steamdeck comment. Probably the easiest way to play PC games and pretty cheap too compared to buying a new PC. You don’t have to deal with windows. Just start it up and play a game.

Ehh… I’ve yet to get a virus from pirating games. Only virus I’ve ever gotten was on my childhood PC when my uncle was watching some sketchy adult content. I was just playing neopets at the time, so I doubt it was me

Kernel level anticheat is mostly in MMORPGs, which is my preferred genre, though there are some games without it. Notably Final Fantasy XIV, and Guild Wars 2 have no anticheat in the client at all. It also depends on the anticheat how much I’m willing to put up with it. XIGNCode is a hard no from me, but nprotect, and easyanticheat are both whatever IMO. Pick your threat model though.

The most complicated game is Wurm Online, and that’s because there’s something going on with my desktop where it just. Crashes. Constantly. I can usually get it to stay on indefinitely after 8 restarts, but it’s annoying.

Consoles are only future proof if you consider that eventually games will stop being released for them, and parts will stop being made. Sure you’ll be able to play the games you already own on them forever, but… Also your PC will be able to run any game on them forever, at least until the hardware degrades, but that also goes for consoles.

If you want to go fully no DRM, GOG is your best bet for most games. Itch.io is also there, but it’s mostly indie games, which isn’t everyone’s scene.

Overall I don’t think of it as complicated, but I’ve been PC gaming consistently for… 25 ish years? I’m largely used to it.

Why would you need a separate device?

What year is this?

As you didn’t play games you can go and play banger titles from previous years that you can grab for pennies when they go on frequent sales. There is dedicated community of !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works.

kernel-level anti-cheat is vary good headline clickbait for media to write on. Most games don’t have them. Some competitive multiplayer games have them but you can check it case by case basis.

If you REALLY want to have separate device for gaming, as you don’t really need that, there are few options to choose from. Playstation, Xbox, and Switch are the mainstream consoles right now. The have a fair share of anti-consumer practices and they offset the cost of hardware by making games more expensive, but you buy convenience and simplicity. The lemmy bubble will tell you to buy Steam Deck and it is really fine choice to make. (Steam is releasing new hardware this year so you might take a look)

Steam has 2 hours of playtime return policy, so you can return the game if you don’t like it. Their hardware pitch is to sell console-like experience (Playsation etc.) on PC. They succeeded in that regard.

Edit: Re-read your question, you are talking about games in general. A Switch might be a good buy, straightforward and you can usually find people willing to play in person or online for the more popular games. The games are rarely on sale though. Highly recommend a pro controller if you go this route.

For PC, there’s basically never kernel level anti-cheat, only a few frankly not great games go that route.

As far as expensive goes, there’s a ton of great PC games you can get for less than $5 during steam sale. The initial buy-in is more for a maybe $1500 PC, but you will make that up after a few dozen games. If you know a PC gaming enthusiast, imply you would play with them if you had a PC and they might sell you an old rig for dirt cheap. I’ve sold a few that way for like $100.

Set-up is easy as steam is the only program you need and controllers are plug-and-play. If you are willing to risk a little work, I found Linux Mint as an OS really easy to install and use, and then it will be future-proof (unlike windows) as well as free. You may have to troubleshoot something weird, but their forums are super helpful.

I think the first question you should answer is which games do you want to play, the answer will be vastly different if you say Astro Bot or Factorio. So for this I will try to base it on my own gaming preferences, which is mostly single-player games. Answering your points:

1. You don’t really need a separate PC, there’s no reason to be that paranoid.
2. Most games don’t have kernel level anti-cheat, only competitive multiplayer games, and those you can’t pirate, so they’re irrelevant to your other solution.
3. Yeah, long gone are the days of popping a disc and playing.

Ok, so, this is my personal opinion, but as long as you don’t care about competitive multiplayer games it should be a valid option for you as well.

Get a Steam Deck. Pros:

• It’s plug-and-play for most stuff, so while you will need to download the content it should just work without fiddling.
• Pricewise is very good, you might be able to build a desktop for cheaper, but that would require a lot more effort than going to steam and clicking buy.
• It’s a separate device, also it’s portable, and while that might not be important currently, it’s nice to be able to pack a gaming rig in your backpack when you have to travel for some reason.
• With some minimal setup can run emulation of anything up to ps2 era very comfortably. It’s a very simple setup with just running one script to set things up.
• It can (if you’re willing to jump through hoops to set it up) run and even download pirates content, although with the ease of access of games on Steam I hardly think it’s worth it.

Cons:

• It’s Linux, so it can’t run games that actively try to prevent you from running Linux, e.g. some online competitive games, in short anything that would require kernel-level anti-cheat.
• It’s a lot more expensive than running games on whatever laptop/desktop you have with you.
• It’s not that powerful, because it’s portable it’s very low power, so while it can run Cyberpunk, it won’t look good or flow nicely. If this is your only deal breaker, you might want to wait a bit because very shortly Steam will launch Steam Machines which are the same thing except trading portability for power.

No one says you gotta play games coming out today.

If you only want to play single player, want it to be cheap, and have a great library of games to play… .Pick up a used PS2 or Gamecube. PS2 lets you play both PS2 and PS1 games, gamecube…if you can find a gameboy adapter for it for cheap, also opens up gameboy/gameboycolor/gameboy advance games. real versatile.

Should be able to find one used online/garage sale/classified for cheap. games are abundant, cheap, and amazing.

anything older is starting to get expensive, and anything newer will typically be always online/online drm checks/etc.

Especially true with how AI is absolutely ruining hardware prices atm, with ram costing as much as goddamn video cards.

Course, thats assuming you want to play on the actual hardware, setting up a retropi for SNES/NES/Genesis/ETC is also viable, bit more fraut trying to find the roms nowadays, though. is the best, most affordable option if you want to play PS1 or older, though.

What you’re not really detailing to us is what exactly do you even want from a game? And if there’s an answer to that, in what way would you prefer to have played that game on?

I think, despite the current hardware price gutting for PCs right now, we’re still in the best of times for PC games. You will not find as many great deals or sales for games on consoles as you would for PC, comparatively speaking. There is a wide range of variability in PC unmatched. Consoles have had their heyday when PC gaming was still figuring itself out in the 80s, 90s and a tiny bit of the 2000s. But, it’s almost no contest anymore.

Building a PC isn’t that difficult, but it costs a lot right now. Maybe just wait for the Steam Machine to be released and consider that.

I’ve been playing on linux for almost five years now with steam through proton. It’s a compatibility thingy majigger that makes it so I can basically play any game I want through steam as long as it doesn’t have anti-cheat, which to me is a plus because I think that shit is downright disgusting.

PC is the most versatile, and IMO, the most future proof. Sure you can get a console that will be good for maybe five or six years, but my current system is almost 13 years old now (an old dell work station with a hole cut in the door so 1070Ti can fit inside) and it still works fine enough with most games. I couldn’t play Baldur’s Gate III or some of the newer games though. It’s basically a potato in that regard; however, it’s more than good enough for my favourite games like Deep Rock Galactic, Deadlock, Satisfactory, Slime Rancher 1 & 2, Factorio and whole bunch more.

An issue right now with PC is that the “AI” fad is increasing the cost of components like RAM and hard drives. So if you want to to get a PC I’d suggest waiting a couple of years or until the AI bubble pops, which should be a good show to watch at least. Valve is also releasing their own PC (the Steam Machine) soon, maybe. I think you’d be interested in that if the AI price hikes didn’t fuck their plans up too much.

Many of the larger studios that you’ve probably heard of were bought out by venture capitalists that then proceed to fuck shit up because, idk, efficiency I guess. This leads to the incomplete releases you often hear about. Anyway, there are a lot of smaller studios that are amazing; like Ghost Ship Games (Deep Rock Galactic) and Coffee Stain Studios (Satisfactory, Goat Simulator). Not to mention the probably thousands of solo devs that make games just because they want too (From Glory to Goo, Townscaper, Tiny Glade, Stardew Valley …).

It’s not just the flashy games you read about, there’s so many other games you can play that are often better in almost every aspect then the games from the larger studios, other than graphics for the most part. I really don’t like consoles because they are limited in what they can play, and often only last five to six years before games stop releasing on them and you have to buy an entire new system. Just my take tho. Again, look into Valves Steam Machine, it should be the best of both worlds. AFAICT prices look to be ~$950 - $1000.

If you want to pirate games check out Linux Crack Tips. I always forget how to link to communities… :s