Uneasy Future of PC Gaming and Privacy

I had a thought today, with Windows 10's intense spyware, and the recent discoveries of Lenovo asshatery I've been looking toward alternative operating systems. But one major factor is the lack of gaming support on OS's other than Windows. I mean, yes you can game, but you are rather limited in your choices. So it brings the question, in the next few years if the constant breaching of privacy is not altered will more people begin to look elsewhere? If more people begin looking elsewhere will more devs start programming games for alternate OS's or just stop caring about the PC? Once DirectX 12 becomes mainstream for games will it will be extremely difficult for devs to not build around it, effectively leaving other OS's in the dust? I know it's rather difficult to predict the future but where should I be looking? Are we moving toward a society where we can either game OR have privacy? Not both?

Can somebody help me straighten my thoughts?

@Ethereal
I'm going to answer each of the question you asked carefully.

in the next few years if the constant breaching of privacy is not altered will more people begin to look elsewhere?

No. The mass majority don't care.

If more people begin looking elsewhere will more devs start programming games for alternate OS's or just stop caring about the PC?

Devs are going to make games for PC and Console as they always have. They have started to support Linux more but they follow the money.

Once DirectX 10 becomes mainstream for games will it will be extremely difficult for devs to not build around it, effectively leaving other OS's in the dust?

You mean Direct X12? No. A developer does have alternatives they can use that are coming up such as Vulcan.

Are we moving toward a society where we can either game OR have privacy? Not both?

Neither. Let's first look at the current state of gaming on pc. Do you have steam? Yes. Does your game go online? Yes. Does it have multiplayer? Yes. Guess what you are likely being monitored. Steam checks to see if your game needs an update and updates. What about google, amazon, Netflix, Facebook? These have information on you as well. So where is the outrage about these guys? Look I think Privacy is an important issue. However, I think people are being hypocritical with attacking Microsoft about the Privacy issue because they don't have all of the facts. I actually found a very well written article on imgur that does talk about some of issues but not all. It's also written before the reveal that some data is being sent to Microsoft even with stuff turned off. Ars Technica wrote a really good article about the data being sent to Microsoft even when you have things turned off. Remember how we were told Windows 10 would be a rolling update release. A rolling update OS will check the system then check the server. If an update is needed, it'll be downloaded. Then you can restart to apply. Has anyone thought maybe just maybe some of this data is that process?

I personally think games are still going to made for Windows. In some ways our gaming is already being monitored by steam or origin. I think over the next couple of weeks, we should see clarifications and investigations into what exactly Windows 10 is doing. It's going to take time to get to the bottom of it. These are my thoughts on the matter.

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Hm, I guess that makes sense, I'm guilty of targeting Microsoft specifically. I'm stuck in that place of "I want to use all these cool features and services but I value my privacy as well and I'm not sure which of the two outweighs the other". In the ars technica and imgur article they made it clear that the data being sent is nothing personally identifiable, and is mostly used in relation to Windows being more of a service. But I'm still not a fan of my OS phoning home all the time. As for Steam/Netflix and such gathering data I would like to find more information on just what type of data they are gathering. I hope Logan or Wendell make a video on this privacy stuff to clear up confusion, to prevent others from being stuck in the hive-mind mentality (like I just did) that just because everybody else is raging about windows doesn't mean its guilty.

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According to the article posted this morning (or last night) in most cases there is a identifier sent to MS that does identify your machine.

"For example, even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu
disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to www.bing.com
to request a file called threshold.appcache which appears to contain
some Cortana information, even though Cortana is disabled. The request
for this file appears to contain a random machine ID that persists
across reboots."

We're just hitting the tip of the iceberg in figuring out what Win 10 is doing and sending, it'll be months before the whole truth comes out. But the reality is that if you use a internet connection your going to be spied on and your data harvested, use any of the convenient services of Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc you will be assimilated!.

So the solution is to limit your exposure as much as you can, place false information as much as you can, move away from the carrot being dangled in front of your screen in the form of ease of use or flashy gizmos, and don't sweat the small intrusions because it's the price of admission to the internet in 2015.

Kinda a sad thing to say huh?

Google is really hard to separate from.

I guess it's sad, but it depends on your perspective, the internet is one of the greatest marvels of the 21st century the idea that it's free (no cost to use) but a cost to enter/exit is a great thing, but because of the free flow of information governments want to control it, because of the high volume of users ISPs what to monetize it on a kilobit basis, the content creators want to be paid for their labors, and the free convenience providers what to extract money from it also, it only makes sense that the last refuge of the user is the operating system everything has been monetized in some way shape or form and the only sale-able commodity is your usage habits and personal identifiers....they are making the internet either a opt-in or opt-out, nothing in-between.

And I share your feelings about Google, I use Gmail but really no other aspect of their services, but eventually I'll move from them to my own domain mail server because I feel it's the only safe harbor that offers any privacy, but I'll still use Gmail for transactions and confirmations, but it will eventually for me be like a Yahoo account I use to have used as a throw away email addy.

The convenience of all of these things is nice but at some point you either totally capitulate to them giving up what little freedom you have or you make the decision that enough is enough and do what you need to do to regain some of the privacy you want and deserve.

Like Win 10 I'm sure it's a fine robust OS but I made the promise to myself last year that I'd move to Linux and make it work for me in the environment I need it to and I've held true to that promise and to be honest it was relatively painless except for the hardware I bought....my point is that everyone has to draw a line in the sand and say no more and start making their moves to counter the onslaught of attacks on their privacy if we don't the internet will become just another virtual strip mall with RFID readers at every doorway monitoring your every move.

A lot of my fears of Win 10 are just starting to become true, for most folks its no big deal because they don't see the intrusion or feel it's worth giving up privacy for free stuff, it's not, and never will be and by the time the masses figure out they've been duped it will be much too late to regain what was lost without totally disconnecting from the net. Maybe it's what people want...to be monitored and watched, get targeted ads, get special offers from a store just because they're walking past it with their smart phone... it just feel really intrusive to me, but that's me.

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