It's impossible to live in society and not be forced to engage with this system. Ok, you don't buy video games from AAA Publishers anymore.
Now, what about the big souless companies that make the food you eat? The transportation you need to use? The materials your home is made out of. The clothing you wear. The problem is a societal one and needs to be addressed at a societal level.
It applies to all areas. What needs to be addressed at a societal level that will fix the problem people have with these types of businesses that provide our services?
A free market allows for consumers to make decisions by supporting it or not. In an ideal setting business A skips out on the quality and treats their staff like shit. People dont support them and business B comes in, has a good track record for quality and treating staff well. If there is no business B then someone is missing out on a business opportunity worth millions. These exact scenarios happened post world war 2 when American business got their asses kicked by the Japanese who focused their efforts on quality within their businesses and focusing on the customer.
The problem that your highlighting is that your saying people have no choice when it comes to food and shelter etc... theres always other options, some you won't like or some that are more difficult to go with.
But in reality what's happening is people keep choosing business A no matter what because they've become dependent on their lifestyles and people now choose convenients and self indulgence over everything else. The biggest issue isn't that your forced to comply to society, it's that enough people believe that to be true. So I guess at the societal level its apathy that's the issue.
I'm getting out of scope here because my point was to address mainly video games. If we are getting into society as a whole, theres far more complex issues at work and would take far more analysis and effort to really dig into. I understand that when it comes to the whole picture it's not always as easy as the points I mentioned. However that conversation is not something I want to painfully type out back and forth over an era forum lol. Society needs work in many areas, but at least with video games not being a necessity, we have the power to influence by choosing how we support the industry.