Apple sell hardware, software and media. Microsoft sell hardware and software. Google sell information and software. No secret. They give away android and make money on apps and information. That doesn't mean spyware though. You willingly give google your data so they can target adds - that is their model.
They don't try to hide this, so they can't be blamed for it. I don't particularly like giving my information away, but until Sailfish is ready, I am stuck using Android. You can still make it usable - don't create or log in to google for a start. Install the fdroid repo for apps - which means you can install the yalp store which gives you access to google play without logging in. Install firefox, and use duck duck go or startpage instead of google. That gives you a usable system with most of privacy.
I also installed termux which gives you a reasonably good unix environment. No need to root. I probably am leaking a bit of information somewhere, but nowhere near as much as a normal android install, and no need to root and kill all google services.
On the gaming front, it actually works quite well. The gemini is a seriously quick bit of kit - I have installed/played open arena, tux kart, quake, mupen64 and played a host of webgl games which were slow on my laptop. You can use miracast if you don't have the HDMI cable - not good for action games as there is a slight delay though.
