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A sub-series within Big Tech's War on Users

Gaming used to be simple. You paid for a game. You got a game. The transaction was done. Somewhere between the cartridge age and the live service gold rush, the industry figured out that the transaction didn't have to end there — and spent the next few decades systematically making sure it never does. Platforms, hardware, monetization schemes, loot boxes, dead servers taking your library with them, and the legal fights slowly catching up to all of it. Some of this is genuinely exciting. Most of it should make you angry.

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1. Valve's Hardware Gambit: Steam Machine's Return with a Vengeance
2. Sony's Monopoly Fine Gets Paid in Monopoly Money
3. The Game Was Never Free: How the Industry Learned to Sell You the Same Thing Twice