PC Gaming and multiple game launchers

[igyman]

This has been a hot topic recently since the Epic Game Store started trying to become a thing. All around the interwebz you will run into people on both sides of the fence - those that say "so what? it's just another launcher!" and those that say "fuck Epic!". Some people argue that having another store can only be good for the PC gaming market, while others are completely uninterested in the new store for various reasons. The most frequent complaints I've run into can be boiled down to:

• lack of features and account security
• anti-consumer practices
• yet another launcher.

Before you're scared away by the wall 'o' text, here's a TL;DR: I don't mind multiple stores as they can only be a good thing, but I do mind multiple launchers. See below what my reasoning is and tell me what your stance is.

My take on all of it is: it's cool that we have another store available and having another store can only be good for the market in the long run, BUT... I am 100% against yet another mandatory desktop client/game launcher and here's why:

The number of launchers is already becoming ridiculous - if you want to play a Blizzard game, you must have the Battle.net client, if you want to play a Steam game, you must have the Steam client, if you want to play a Ubisoft game, you need UPlay, for EA you need Origin, a separate launcher for Bethesda and the list keeps growing. At the moment I already have four of these desktop clients installed - two by choice and two because I had to if I wanted to play those games. I really don't want a fifth, sixth, or a hundredth one. Most of my games are on Steam, but make no mistake, I am not here to fanboy over Steam - if I had a choice, I would migrate my entire library to GOG, because their desktop client is completely optional. But I can't really do that, so...​

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As someone somewhere put it bluntly - I don't want to have to split my library. At least not more than absolutely necessary. If you think about it, when you install a game, you get a desktop shortcut for your game, but that shortcut has become completely meaningless, since it's actually a shortcut to the launcher, not to the game. In the world of multiple launchers, those shortcuts taking up space are pretty much the only way to consolidate your library, but only your library of currently installed games. It's completely realistic for someone who has over 100 games on all installed launchers combined to start forgetting where they bought a certain game. That means rummaging through each of your launchers' libraries until you find what you're looking for and install it. And people are lazy when it comes to this stuff, and rightfully so. This is entertainment and a pretty expensive form of it, so we shouldn't have to jump through hoops to be able to use it.​

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This brings us to the worst part of what Epic is doing at the moment - exclusivity! I completely understand this move from a business standpoint - it's a very effective way to bring people to your storefront. And I wouldn't even mind it, if the storefront wasn't bound to yet another game client. But it is. And, apparently, a pretty bad game client at that. So I do mind. I especially mind when scummy moves by certain publishers happen and they start removing games they've been advertising and/or taking pre-orders for on platform A and then they move it exclusively to platform B at the last minute (I'm looking at you Metro Exodus and, to a significantly lesser extent, Control). These kinds of moves are the fault of various publishers, but Epic is also to blame for providing that option. Hell, even Steam is to blame for it in some capacity. These kinds of moves made me wary of even wishlisting a game on a specific game client, since I don't know it will actually release there.​

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So yeah, basically if the keys sold at various stores were universal instead of requiring specific game clients/launchers, I couldn't care less about store exclusivity, or the aforementioned game launchers. I would pick one launcher that suits my needs and buy the keys at different stores, depending on the availability and which store had the best price offer. That's what I actually do now - even if most of my gaming library is on Steam, I have bought very few games directly on Steam. Those that I do buy there directly, I buy during sales. But if I want to play a game at launch, I usually look to other storefronts (like GreenmanGaming, HumbleStore, etc) and check the prices there - there's usually a better offer to be found.​

 

[Lynk Former]

In an effort not to flood the forums with paragraphs of text with every single post I make (lol), I will summarise my thoughts:

• I like Steam because it was the first to do the formula of digital distribution well enough to invest into.
  
  
• I like GOG because they cater to my oldskool desires, but also because they allow me to own games without any DRM attached.
  
  
• I like Uplay because, despite it being yet another launcher, Ubisoft has actually made it into a decent platform for their own titles and don't exclusively hold games hostage in it, allowing them to be available on other platforms.
  
  
• I do not like Origin because EA made specific titles exclusive to that platform.
  
  
• I do not like Epic Games Store because of the exclusivity deals its been striking with developers.
  
  
• To me, PC should be an open platform and people should be able to buy their games from any store front they want to play them on a PC. If I wanted to deal with platform exclusives, I'd go back to playing on the consoles.

 

[Rebel]

To me, launchers generally come across as a modern form of bloatware. Needless programs doing nothing more than getting between me and the game I actually want to play. Often simply serving as advertisements for other games, most of the time completely unrelated to this thing I want to actually play.

There's a lot of whinging these days about Millennials killing "brand loyalty" and quite frankly many of these "exclusive" deals strike me as the last desperate grasps at forcing brand loyalty on buyers without actually offering an incentive to remain loyal.

Anyway, there's a reason I don't buy many games anymore. This among them.

 

[Bob Lion54]

I don't like all these launchers because it's too much to keep track of. It just becomes a hassle, especially if I haven't played a game from a particular publisher in a while. It's like every publisher with more than one game has to have their own...

"Hmmm... I think I have that game... where did I buy it... Steam? No... it's not on my GOG account... Uplay? Wait, what's my password? Crap, I signed up for that before I lost access to my old email..."

I mean, it's just too many different accounts to keep track of and try to remember what you bought where. Some of the individual stores might be fine, but it's just too much of a hassle. Same thing is happening with steaming TV. We're going to need something like 50 accounts and apps between TV and gaming soon. Yea, that's a hyperbole, but maybe not by much.

First you had Netflix, then Hulu came around. Of course there's the premium ones like HBO GO and Starz and whatnot, but now we've got CBS All Access with Disney about to release a streaming service AND a seperate Marvel streaming platform... oh yea, WWE has one too. Thing is, that's not all there is, pretty much all the networks have one and many cable channels, and that's TV. So, we're going to get that with gaming too?

Just go through Steam, let GOG keep getting the classic games, and if you HAVE to set up a launcher, make it optional. Still put your stuff elsewhere, but offer incentives to buy direct or whatever... I donno, it just feels like it's getting out of hand to me.