For years it never ceases to amaze me that the PS3 interface is so clean, nice, and pleasant to use. I was excited to hook it up tonight but was disappointed.
I now can’t use the network without scanning a QR code in my phone or going to some website. I am also really upset that my PS3 updated to include bloatware that I can’t remove (YouTube and Amazon, Spotify, can’t recall). Like, how did they just enshittify something I’ve already owned for 20 years? F.
If I don’t find a vendor who has no tracking / parasitic practices soon, I’m just going to stop gaming. I’ve already found Steam sending a million queries that I have to block. They forced me to be online to play a game after playing offline was acceptable just a week before. I remember just owning games and being left alone and I miss it.
First Reddit became toxic and unusable, news became mudslinging garbage, they are trying to ruin Linux with age verification, and now they are even reaching back to enshittify 20 year old gaming consoles. I just want to go live in the woods at this point. We can’t address issues faster than they enshittify the entire world.
Anyways, anyone know a deshittified gaming hack?
If you’re buying a game off an online storefront, there will always be some level of tracking. That in mind, what you probably want is something like GOG or Itch.io where you just download and play the games. You don’t need any launchers, you just download the installer for whichever game you bought and that’s yours, no DRM. I think the only way you’ll truly be able to have absolutely zero tracking, you’d have to be buying only games on console, bought in person with cash, with the console exclusively offline. In this case, if you’re on anything past the PS3 generation, you’ll be greeted with a lot of games that will not function without downloading an update. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for something like Steam to track some data though. I’ve got no issue with it tracking how long I’ve played a game, or tracking what kinds of games I buy.