It’s horrifying to me that any of these fucking games are running outside userspace. Is anti cheat the only reason why that is necessary? Why is it necessary for anti cheat?

Swing and a miss

I assume OP just did their best to make up an example. She doesn’t say anywhere that she is a superfan herself or even has read the books at all.

You don’t need admin to plug your computer into the AV do you? I assumed it was OP’s computer.

I would love to have a Steam Machine. I love my Steam Deck. However… the nature of Steam games, so far, even on the Deck, is that you need to bop “ok” every once in a while, or even enter a username or something for some unwashed-ass game, and that’s a lot harder on a form factor that doesn’t have a touchscreen…