LMDE. Debian stability with the usability of mint. It works… That’s it. No gimmicks.

I have no issue with paid mods, and paid beta access was part of the deal as other options at the time would let you invest but you got nothing from it, this way you get something and can shape it’s progress. Everyone wins.

ClamAV is slow to get updates and frankly not a great tool to use. AV is a must as isolation and sandboxing are only as good as the next exploit. Not too mention scams like phishing are not stopped by isolation.

Proprietary sure, but how is it privacy invasive let alone invasive on computers?

What non-proprietary option is there? I can’t think of a single antivirus option which is actually remotely decent which is open.

What’s with the diss on Malwarebytes?

IGN still has one, humble bundle. I’m familiar with the other digital stores like fileplanet, stardock etc, they all sold limited items, as did Steam at the time. There is more then 4… You might want to count again.

Note how it says on the western side…loot boxes were already in MMOs starting with Maple Story, this is how they payed for the free to play… Which also came from MMOs. You didn’t have to use loot boxes in TF2, you could just buy the item which funded the game and the community members who made those items. It allowed modders to move from a passion project to having a career.

Sell now fix later… No that’s not what early access is. That system which was already in use by other platforms again… Sigh… Was a way for players to invest in games. It allowed many huge games to fund their development like Rimworld, Factorio, Minecraft, Baulders Gate 3 etc.

I’m getting the idea you are some young kid who doesn’t actually know the industry at all let alone about Valve.

If they killed competition they did a terrible job as there is more now then ever.

Microsoft popularised micro transactions, however they were never used, but DLC which they also popularised along with Sega and Sony adopted that name. Microtranactions were renting software where every time you opened the software or used a specific feature you would be charged a part of a cent, i.e. microtransactions

Loot boxes came from MMOs. The gambling thing Valve has certainly been a leader in.

Sell now fix later, EA and Ubisoft.

Anything with DRM can stop older titles, Steam included. However this is normally after decades of use. This is why many people buy Single player games on GOG.

The worst part of all this is epic used to be good, they made great games, supported modders, released tons of free content, went the extra mile etc. Then they went Microsoft and packed Games for Widows Live, which was so bad it killed the services subscription and the rest is history…I wish they were.

This could be an issue where the AMD GPU is only being used. I, like some of the others would suggest Linux Mint.