On steam I can click install and run and most games windows and Linux just work without further effort. This makes gog worthless to me. I could just use wine I don’t know why I’d bother.

Ad hominem isn’t when you insult people AND make an argument its when you insult people INSTEAD of making an argument.

User initially believes that this is only a Linux issue because its almost entirely discussed on forums frequented by technical people who often use Linux whereas forums full of Windows gamers are equally effected but ignorant of the topic.

It’s a much higher risk than average because games are often abandoned within one year of release and still run as long as 10-15 years later and connects to the internet and other randos on the internet. See the Call of Duty games that allow you to take over the computer of anyone who connects to your online match. It greatly degrades the security of its users.

Technically lots of things people call “malware” don’t actually do any of those things. For instance they may hijack your default search engine, pop up ads, or otherwise monetize your computer at your expense. The category that was invented by ass coverers is “possibly unwanted program” but outside of those who worry about being sued by scumbags people colloquially refer to both what you call malware AND PUPs as "malware the root of which is “bad” after all. Language being descriptive not prescriptive I think this broader definition of malware is fine.

Do you remember when Sony released cds that when inserted into Windows computer auto ran an installer that installed a rootkit that made it impossible for Windows to see any processes or files that started with a certain sequence of characters instantly turning any malware that named its files or processes similarly powerful rootkit. Oh and it installed a cd driver that made it impossible to copy their music.

Suggested removal was a full reinstall of windows.

If they change the deal they should have to offer refunds. This makes it an expensive choice after the fact.

No its common for anti-cheat on Windows to have full root permission to your entire system Windows users are just on average less intelligent, less concerned about privacy, and, more ignorant about technology. This doesn’t mean using Windows makes you stupid its just the OS of choice for the stupid and ignorant.

It’s interesting actually. There are both games with insane budgets that cost more that than triple A games in years past and incredible tooling and assets available for very modest amounts of money + incredibly powerful computers very little. It’s possible for some games to be made for less than ever before AND some to be made for more.

For practical purposes its capturing revenue from OEMs and users. Android being open source if they didn’t completely sabotage an actual open source market they could well find OEMs or third parties capturing those dollars or indeed those unearned dollars evaporating in a competitive market. Think the IBM PC and Microsoft.

SU software has been a thing for about as long as android about 20 years or about. Has otherwise legitimate su been a source of unattended exploiting?

The obvious risk factors are that users shall be tricked into granting inappropriate permissions to otherwise malicious or compromised software that they have deliberately installed. Outside of mobile platforms this is considered an acceptable risk that competent users can consistently successfully manage on their own hardware.

In fact if you look at actual users even those with very limited technical know how the primary thing that

The secondary risk is that users with no legit source of tools to root

if you use an exploit to gain SU what makes you think a malicious app can’t do the same

They can. 99% of computer security is still not installing malware or being tricked into taking actions that enable your own harm. That said often rooting methods involve physically pressing keys while booting to access the boot loader, ADB, running things with with expansive permissions. Malicious apps install via play store with reasonable permissions will generally have a much harder time breaking out of the sandbox.

Or better yet, find a new exploit in the SU management software you installed

Historically “sudo” tools haven’t been the source of many issues whereas a multitude of problems flowed from complex memory unsafe code.

As soon as you root, you can no longer guarantee root activities are not taking place unbeknownst to you

You can never guarantee this however if you are careful what you install you will remain safe same as it was before.

You can’t just peg things to an expensive thing people do rarely and say something people do commonly should be just as expensive while ignoring the cost of the device that runs the game.