This is probably more common than you might think.

I don't play games much, but I do need some software that only runs on Windows, and do this. One VM is Win7, the other is Win10. Neither get network access, so I don't worry about either surveillance or updates.

I also have a VM that runs a really old version of Debian, because I have a couple UPSes that don't support modern ssh.

I suspect we'll also see phone emulation for compatibility becoming more of a thing. Granted, the vast bulk of that software is garbage that nobody cares about, but there are things seeing increasing enterprise use. Someone will go out of business and orphan something people count on at some point.

Realistically, I'd be willing to bet the only old Mac games people are going to want to play are for classic Mac OS, in which case you already need to use a VM and have done for at least a decade.

I'm struggling to think of any games in OS X era where the Mac would be even close to the easiest or best place to play them.

I appreciate the notion that if you've bought the software you want to be able to keep using it for as long as possible, but we're talking about the niche-est of niches here.

Isn't this how node.js works now?