Right… Splitgate and splitgate 2 are lies. What you experienced are probably mostly if not all bit matches instead of playing with and against other players. But that is besides the question.

Realistically there have been no actual good games in that niche in recent years (less than 10 years old) and the old ones are either dead unless you like botmatches or have a tiny community that is really REALLY good and will wipe the floor with you.

Anyhow Quake 3 (good luck) Tribes 2 (good luck) Unreal tournament 2004 (good luck obtaining legally, also good luck) Halo (LoL last decent one was reach on 360) There’s more but those are even more niche than the big ones already listed.

Yet… Ubisoft did go and “remove” the keys for the crew when they shut that one down. No one but them can really say if they actually deleted them or not. though I have my doubts with how that company has acted in recent years.

There are reasons for why that is possible, for better or worse.

To reverse malicious actions that may have been taken by other people that got access to the account for any reason for example.

There may even be legal reasons for why that is the case. Licensing law can be quite complicated.

And then there is the fact that if it’s hidden it’s effectively gone anyways and that may actually be what people actually care about. Not whether or not they technically still have that game or not. People wanting a clean library is a thing and it ties into the concept that is the right to be forgotten.

I have some thoughts on that despite the fact that I don’t even watch the show.

For the first point: Load distribution to ensure that the system wears down more evenly is a thing that can be done. Yeah you may be able to automate it but there can be reasons why you may not want to do that, like added complexity that makes the system even more failure prone For the second point: It’s still a lot easier to maintain something than it is to fix it when it’s broken. Having eyes there to do that may just be a way to get someone to check for potential failure points before they become a problem. Even if they may be in other systems nearby that are unrelated. Having someone check those systems by hand also has a security aspect to it because it makes it less likely that someone can just tamper with that system. Yes you have dedicated security personnel but security is still everyone’s responsibility.

Also. Plot points and all that stuff that makes it fun to watch.