ChristianChicken: Do you ever do anything to get around it? Do you make an exception if you're only boycotting one company but like the other? Do you research the money trail to see how much, if anything, gets to the company? Do you buy a physical 2nd hand copy? Do you buy a suspiciously cheap key from a super shady reseller (how do those even work?)? Or do you just pirate it?
I might boycott some publishers for aggressive multi-layered DRM, etc, but since I've also lost all interest in modern Ubisoft / Square Enix franchise over-milked over-sequelled, online multi-player lootbox / MT saturated pay2degrind / pay2win, dumbed-down, consolized remake-itus inflicted, etc, 'games' anyway, they're ironically doing me a favor in "self-filtering" out such junk. To me, Larian, CDPR, etc, have quietly become the new single-player AAA studio's whilst it's the more DRM-Free friendly Indie's that seem to bring all the creativity / fresh feel to games. "
We want you to pay $200 per game" 'traditional AAA' studio's don't even appear on my radar anymore.
As for buying older physical 2nd hand copies instead of new remakes, I've done that before and was very definitely glad to grab the DRM-Free Age of Empires Collectors Edition (DVD-ROM) off Ebay, add
uPatch and enjoy the games that play better than ever rather than pay up for newly Denuvo'd "HD" or "Definitive" versions that seem more and more buggier & sluggish the more they officially over-extend them. Many other games (eg, Thief 1-2) are in the same position where the best "remasters" of all are the continued improvements to the originals done for free by the modding community rather than mediocre 'official sequels' that sell so poorly the entire franchise (thankfully) ends up getting shelved anyway.