I can't stand modern games.

Regular readers will know of my particular loathing for all things Micros***e, but everyone else is jumping on the same commercial bandwagons now; and in this area we have subscription pricing, in-game purchasing, enforced obsolescence (which you mention) but for firmware, hardware and operating systems as well as for application/game software - Windoze 9, anyone? - and the addiction factor and lock-in that is exemplified by Fortnite, a game so controlling that children would rather wet themselves than stop playing for long enough to answer the call of nature FFS.

I've also found that the XBox is an automated money-removal machine. We have (for some reason) one of these pieces of witchcraft in our house. One day we bought a game. Over the course of the following week, with no explanation, permission or warning, about £400 disappeared from my bank account in a series of transactions with "Micros***e" written next to them. Now if we want to buy anything for the XBox we have to key in all the card details, make the purchase, then go through a whole heirarchy of settings and menus to delete the card details each time. Incidentally it's an interesting exercise to compare the prices charged in the XBox Store with those on offer in high-street toy shops.

The other problem with modern games is that I'm s***e at them :-) - actually there's a serious point, they're too complicated and with too much to try to remember from the outset you just start, feel confused for about ten seconds then there's a big bang and a little demonstration of OpenGL particle systems and it's over. Anything later than SimCity 2000 or Transport tycoon is beyond me. And I'm not stupid - I could be writing code for these games.

Then though there are things like Minecraft. I don't like its blocky, coarse appearance and I have a near-obsessive insistence that the world is round and therefore should be modelled not as a grid but as a subdivided icosahedron, but that aside it is inclusive, allows (admittedly highly awkward) user additions and modification, doesn't cost the earth and although it has in-game purchases they seem to be useful rather than required-if-you-want-to-last-more-than-ten-seconds. There are options which allow a newbie to get to grips with it and endless variety in what you can actually do. Minecraft is available on multiple platforms although it was swallowed up by Micros***e a few years ago.

And so came to pass the saying that was written: the day shall come when Micros***e will sell Linux software :-)