Except it isn’t: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_cube

Similarly, how the kilogram is the SI unit for weight, not the gram.

Everyone in metric zone fails as well to guess weights of a few grams :) best I can do is estimate 1/4 kilos

Also a good solution but you will end up in a container anyway once the requirements will become too old to be satisfied on a current OS.

That might be - but depending on the platform, that container is trivial or not necessary at all (e.g. wine on Linux still runs 16 bit executables with just a config file). Also, until then, I can continue to run the game without worry. E.g. Unreal Tournament 99 still worked out of the box (last I tested) on Debian 12 - haven’t tried it yet on Debian 13.

Why ? Any technical reason beside your dislike for containers, in this specific scenario ?

Because jailing a container is even harder than jailing an application. “But a container is already jailed” you’ll say - I don’t trust any jail that I can’t choose & configure myself.

If the publisher only give you the server binary (and all the dependencies) there is way to be sure that the next OS update does not break something, assuming you are able to run it in the first place.

The source code you say ? Fine, when the copyright end, after 70 years, they will release it in the public domain, until then… good luck, laws are on their side.

How about: document the requirements for the execution environment (in industry this is called an interface definition document), based on which the gaming community can then generate their own container configs if they like, but no one has to run stuff in a container.

I firmly disagree that this would be a good use case. Allowing this kind of container shenanigans would introduce more incompatibilities than it solves.

Pardon my French but would you please kindly fuck off with “container solutions”? Cheers.

How about we don’t phantasize about lynching? Although I get the sentiment, but that’s going too far.

because of that one guy who wants EU app dev on their resume,

this is the kind of people I despise and who I think deserve eternity in hellfire, but also deserve being spit in the face by all their friends and family