There's absolutely no need for an invasive spyware software such as EAC for the NON-competitive "have fun with friends and community" kinda game.

You've effectively killed your game accessibility. Now, I'm not a disabled person, but as far as I understand from reviews and posts from disabled people (like this one: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/GeekButtsMuteBigTittyGothGF/recommended/438100/) lots of accessibility tools making quality of life, control and social interaction easier for disabled people was done primarily using mods (i.e. modified clients which EAC now prevents from loading). Mods provided these folks with features like advanced closed captioning, or mods for the visually impaired people, they are now practically non-existent.

I can sort of understand client-side anti-cheats in competitive games (but even then they don't really prevent cheaters from getting an advantage, in practice all it does it just makes it harder for GNU/Linux users to enjoy the game through proton) but this right here is not it.

Bad move.

There's absolutely no need for an invasive spyware software such as EAC for the NON-competitive "have fun with friends and community" kinda game. You've effectively killed your game accessibility. Now, I'm not a disabled person, but as far as I understand from reviews and posts from disabled people (like this one: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/GeekButtsMuteBigTittyGothGF/recommended/438100/) lots of accessibility tools making quality of life, control and social interaction easier for disabled people was done primarily using mods (i.e. modified clients which EAC now prevents from loading). Mods provided these folks with features like advanced closed captioning, or mods for the visually impaired people, they are now practically non-existent. I can sort of understand client-side anti-cheats in competitive games (but even then they don't really prevent cheaters from getting an advantage, in practice all it does it just makes it harder for GNU/Linux users to enjoy the game through proton) but this right here is not it. Bad move.