So there you have it, you either stop playing all multiplayer games (not even just competitive ones!) entirely

There's plenty of multiplayer games that run just fine on linux. Including FPS games with perfectly functional anti cheat, it's just a select few which are unfortunately very popular that actively block linux. This is the part where you put your money where your mouth is and support the games that support the system you want to game on.

I agree with your overall point.

However, as a professional codemonkey, I promise you that root-level AC is in fact less secure than server-side heuristic AC + user reporting, and tends to be user-hostile due to false-flagging of modified systems. Root-level AC can be bypassed rather easily these days with DMA and other out-of-band tooling.

As a case-study, League of Legends lacked any root-level AC for well over a decade, and was arguably the most popular game in the world at points. Cheaters were extraordinarily rare; the average player would typically encounter well under a dozen cheaters per thousand games.

Riot Games then released Valorant with full root-level AC, and had an aimbot explosion within a few months - mostly because they devalued player feedback & reporting in favor of their “robust” automated AC solution. Their overall anticheat strategy became less reliable on the whole, but they stuck to it because root-level AC is cheaper and easier to execute from the corporate-profit POV.

I agree with your first paragraph, if you just got hooked to these games and want to compromise your own privacy and security by playing these games, that is your own trade offs.

But your second paragraph claims that not compromising security and privacy means you have to deal with cheaters. That is false. The games who support Linux do not have more cheaters. In fact, there's plenty of cheaters all over the anti Linux games, such as destiny and league.

Also there are plenty of multi-player and competitive games on Linux. It's only a few who do not (who admittedly also happen to be some of the more popular titles). I only agree with this sentiment if you're hooked onto the specific games that are anti Linux, not the competitive multi-player genre.

They don't know ring 0, but they would understand "this anti cheat is the most privacy invasive kind, controlling and monitoring everything on your computer".

KOLANAKI

It's the most predatory game I've seen so far. It has lootboxes, MTX, and all types of dark patterns.