So I got a sudden urge to play Runescape (2007scape, it should go without saying) again after however many years. Didn't have anything spectacular in mind, mostly just wanted to fuck about in Lumbridge, murder a few chickens, chop a few trees, basically just live out the experience of being a noob again for shits and giggles. Now, back in the day, all you needed in order to start playing was to go to the website, open the game, click "new account", come up with a username and a password, and you were good to go. Upon trying to set up an account, this was my experience: >Game is no longer browser based, you have to download a client to even run it >Click to make new account >Game opens up my web browser >Have to enter account info there, can no longer do so in the game window >Click to make new account >Get redirected like, 4 times >Have to fill out captcha not once, but twice >Have to give an e-mail address, game no longer accepts usernames >Don't feel like giving my actual e-mail address >Make throwaway Gmail account >Enter it in >Webpage decides I've put in "too many requests" and blocks me from finishing the process >Attempt to finish signing up on my phone browser >Blocked on there as well >After an hour or so, decide to try again >Get redirected multiple times, again >Have to fill out multiple captchas, again >Finally am able to finish creating the account >Open up client >Enter in the email I just signed up with >"New accounts must use the Jagex Launcher" >Have to download an entire launcher, alongside the client, in order for the game to allow me to connect >Decide it's no longer worth it and give up the attempt When and why did simple convenience become such a no-no in the gaming world? Why is all this bullshit involved with something as simple as setting up an account, that benefits absolutely no-one and serves no purpose but to hinder and infuriate people who just want to play the fucking game? It's not just Runescape, either. Almost every game you come across now requires some sort of sign up that requires forking over email addresses, signing up for special accounts, whatever. Then, years later, these companies have a security breach, and whoops, all your accounts and e-mail addresses or whatever are out there in the hands of whomever, because these companies apparently absolutely NEEDED to have them, for some reason, just to let you play a 30 year old game for a few hours. And before anyone starts saying "It's to deter bots", no, no it absolutely is not. Anyone who has ever played free to play Runescape for more than 5 seconds will tell you that free to play is absolutely filled to the brim with bots, to the point where the game becomes borderline unplayable for legitimate players on more populated worlds. Anyone who has played for any length of time can tell you that Jagex absolutely, positively, does not give a FUCK about getting rid of bots or doing anything to solve or address the bot problem. Anyone trying to tell you that all these extra steps are some attempt on their part to try and deter these people (who probably have automated programs that do the entire signup process for them anyway) is completely delusional. So, I guess the TL;DR version of my post is: What is the point of all these extra steps in the signup process for pretty much everything? Why is a simple username and password not sufficient anymore?