It boils down to a risk assessment. The fact is people interested in cheating continue to escalate the norm. That's the arms race.

Meanwhile we are letting shady companies illegally spy on users [0] and mine crypto [1], for what? What is the gain? What is the value proposition of kernel-level drivers in the anti-cheat application? What's more, the average gamer doesn't know anything about computers. How can they be expected to make an informed decision about whether or not they should buy a game with kernel-level anticheat if they don't know what that means? Even worse, there is no legal requirement that a game's marketing material say anything about its anti-cheat implementation. These aren't tin-foil hat concerns, these are the enablers of real scandals that have happened and are happening.

0. https://www.wired.com/story/kernel-anti-cheat-online-gaming-...

1. https://play.esea.net/forums/492152

Let's not forget that a large need for anti-cheat comes from focus on centralized matchmaking overr community-hosted and community-moderated servers that were more common before the game industry's focus on monetizing their games to the last bit.

The people they do buy cheats from do the work and effort. They don't seem especially bothered by kernel-level anti cheat stuff. It keeps them in business, since they get less quick home-brewed competition.

And just consider how much money flows for "micro" transactions. There is plenty of "players" willing to pay money for hardware cheats.

My observation is that competitive online gaming is over. It's just a cesspool of cheaters now.