Does pixel support alternate OSes or it just doesn't get in the way of custom firmware developers?

And for the gaming aspect, there is a huge market for mobile gaming, specially in Asia, so having a manufacturer like Motorola adopting GrapheneOS as a first class citizen will improve the chances that high performance applications will have better performance in such OSes which is a big win.

The Google Pixel has first-class support for alternate OSes (not custom firmware like a Chromebook). The OEM has to go out of their way to support avb_custom_key as mentioned in https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/avb/+/mas... and I believe the GrapheneOS founder strcat was heavily involved in helping Google design this feature and flow for Android Verified Boot.

i mean, that sounds like a subjective distinction, but it lets you unlock the bootloader and then re-lock it with your own keys so eh..?

If you conceive a device to be shipped with a specific OS that's a completely different relationship with the developer than just giving the keys to the kingdom and wishing good luck, so I hardly think this is subjective

they used to publish a buildable AOSP tree for the device which is no longer the case