I’m a firm believer that inching towards a more private life and future is a good thing in and of itself. However, I also believe that striving for a healthy social life and finding individual happiness is very important.
One area that I’m a bit lost on how to achieve better privacy is gaming. I also believe this is an area that is often overlooked. Do you all have any tips, tricks, or guides on how to game while retaining some level of privacy?
Specifically I’m referring to privacy from corporations, governments, and to a lesser extent friends. I’m also thinking about all types of games, from MMOs, to competitive FPSs, to RTS Games, to RPGs.
With Linux gaming becoming increasingly viable in conjunction with the mainstream success of the Steamdeck, I would imagine one idea for most people is kicking windows to the curb.
Couple of things: 1 is to run a privacy-friendly OS. AtlasOS is not really an OS at all, but really just Windows 10 stripped of all the spyware. This also removes pretty much all of the security features so you really ONLY want to run this on a gaming-only device, or on a gaming-only sandboxed partition. Otherwise, Proton has made Linux very usable for the vast majority of games.
Second: Look at the yellow boxes on Steam. This is where they disclose all the shady shit publishers are pushing on you. Don’t buy games with DRM. Don’t buy games with anti-cheat, this is incredibly invasive software. Don’t buy games that require you to sign an EULA, which is usually just forfeiting all of your privacy rights. Don’t buy “online-only” games.
All games on GOG require no DRM so those are usually a good bet.
I just dualboot linux and windows solely for gaming, sure i could get most my game library working on linux but its just easier having all my games in one place, and i dont really have to mess with unbreaking stuff
As you probably understand, playing a game with friends using a service online will require you to provide certain information in order to work. I’m just wary of companies/governments, other orgs collecting and using data beyond what is needed for providing that service without an option to disable it.
I ain’t giving Amazon and game companies my phone number. I use protonmail, I have a Linux box and Steam Deck. I don’t play games that have invasive anticheat, as in I dropped Riot Games completely.
For true privacy and anonymity (beyond what I do regularly for myself), it is best to play single player and local multiplayer games that can function without internet access. Nintendo Games all work fine with local wireless play without the need to register online. GOG and itch.io allow you to purchase games that you can keep forever. Keeping gaming installations, drives, computers separate to your productivity is another idea.
This is a legal grey area, but if you and friends purchase a game then afterward find a way to play it without the need to connect to Steam or the game publisher’s servers, that is also a way to preserve your privacy/anonymity.
I’m a Linux user, so I keep steam (and by extension, proton and my steam games) sandboxes via flatpak. While I’m sure many anti cheat solutions can install rootkits (or ARE rootkits), I doubt it’s profitable for them to design that particular type of malware.