I think Sims 1 was physical only.

As a digital product EA halted distribution of the Sims 2 with very little notice:

On July 16, 2014, Electronic Arts announced the end of support for The Sims 2. As a response, The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection was released at the same time as a limited time offer. The game became available for free download from Origin exclusively following an announcement by EA that they would no longer be supporting the game. This offer ended at 10:00 PDT July 31, 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sim_2

Oddly it looks like Mac got a version via another distributor not long after ?!

My experience with earlier GDQuest content has been pretty good in the past but the new courses are pretty pricy.

I feel like I’ve been hearing this since odyssey.

I don’t like the idea of it needing to be patched in.

At launch advanced graphics mode settings could be something that is disabled by default but unlockable (via config.ini setting, console command, cheat code, whatever). Really the implementation isn’t what’s important, just that it is opt-in and the user knows that are leaving the normal settings and entering something that may not work as expected.

Then if they are still supporting the game later the defaults can be changed with a patch but if the devs don’t have that opportunity the community can still document this behaviour on sites like www.pcgamingwiki.com.

It would instantly break compatibility with >99% of windows software.

They are trying with Windows S but i don’t think it has much of a market.