It does support "modern gaming" yes, but like the sibling comment mentions, at least Riot's anti-cheat demands Windows 10 22H2 (the last iteration of Win10) as a minimum. There are a few somewhat convoluted workarounds floating around that people use. Also Adobe CS seems to require Win10 22H2.

There used to be a website something like "windowsserver2008gaming.com" or something like that idr the specific domain, that was literally a guide to turn old windows server OS installs into gaming computers. The golden years.

My only caveat is that I’m not sure how it handles multiplayer games that require anti-cheat or DRM-style mechanisms, but it’s been flawless with every title I’ve thrown at it so far (BG3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Cyberpunk, Ori, etc)

Most DRM-laden software requires 22H2 minimum. So no Xbox game pass at least.

If you mean “modern” as in technologies like HDR, no.

Even Riot’s rootkit “Vanguard” has reduced requirements for Windows 10.

"modern gaming" being a euphemism for "more proprietary software that has chained us to even worse proprietary software for decades".

I don’t feel particularly chained to proprietary software just by playing games. I play all of them on Linux using open source software.

Yes, the games themselves are proprietary, but that’s because they’re primarily art pieces, and proprietary licenses makes some logical sense in that case.

It's actually a question relating to what some people want to do with their computer. Most people don't run an OS because of some moral objection to other OS's but because it lets them do what they want with their device.

The "moral objection" here being, that it doesn't let people do whatever they want with their device.

No, it's for IoT. Don't install an IoT Operating System if you are planning to do normal Operating System things.

Whilst true, the IoT naming is a bit misleading. It's not just designed for IoT devices/purposes. It can run pretty well as a normal operating system, not much is different. (Think Payment Systems, Library Computers, etc).

I think Microsoft just wanted to be in on the "Internet of Things" hype train. The Windows IoT Core is the cut back version of Windows designed explicitly for headless, IoT stuff.

Wrong. I've been gaming on it with no problems.

The marketing works for you. This is the precise reason, they name it like this.

The IoT means it is for people who can't afford having the OS vendor make the OS do things against their will. Which should be everyone, but sadly isn't.