NO MORE Gamer Launchers

[Wicked Recluse]

I am absolutely furious with game launchers. I have 40+ Steam games, more than half I must log in to a game launcher (Like Uplay). I am utterly sick of it. I am a hardcore gamer and I play lots of games. Recently, I have been blowing off games that require another game launcher log in. It's so frustrating to attempt to play a game that I have spent $60 on just to have to log into an account I havent logged into for nearly a year and don't remember the log in anymore. Is it really necessary for a developer like Ubisoft to have a launcher? I don't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about their "free" in game content, or their "points". I can't stand Microsofts pathetic games for windows live requirement for Batman Arkham City, and I despise Origin (for EA titles). All I want to do is double click and go, not double click, wait for launcher updates, login, wait for updates, go through 20 pages of news on my game that I bought but dont own, confirm login, and then play, oh but wait, now the game needs a 1GB update that takes another 20 minutes. I will hereby make a stand, any game that requires another login/launcher I will not purchase. Yes I will miss out on some good titles, yes my ONE opinion doesnt matter (just clearifying for the trolls I know I am nobody and it doesnt matter, I am venting ok!!!) No more ubisoft, EA, or Microsoft purchases from me until the launchers are history. I am already logged into one client, why another? And don't say anything about security, I can go get any game available on the market for FREE, their launchers do NOT provide enough security for that to be a viable arguement. I choose to pay devs for their hardwork for great games like Skyrim.

[Kenny32673]

Dirtman73 eredeti hozzászólása:

Steam isn't the proper place for dictatorial demands.

Except you (maybe not YOU personally but people in this thread) want Steam to issue a dictatorial demand to other publishers that they remove their launchers or don't sell their games on Steam?

[ToasterOverlord]

Dirtman73 eredeti hozzászólása:

ToasterOverlord eredeti hozzászólása:

And guess what Steam is? It's a launcher. I bought Portal 2 in a retail store 2 years ago but I couldn't play it. Valve forced me to download their launcher, Steam, and that's why I'm here.

This issue isn't that we're dealing with Steam as a launcher, the issue is that publishers are tacking on their own game clients in addition to Steam. It's redundant, as well as being problemtatic in some cases -- Uplay's standalone Steam launcher is a grand example of that.

Yes, isn't it just convenient that Steam isn't an issue, just because it's your launcher of choice. Well, it is what I prefer as well, but the fact is that publishers are simply not tacking on their own game clients. Their games are designed to work with their game clients. The games that have clients (EA's games, Ubisoft's, etc) weren't designed to be played with Steam, but through thier respective launchers. EA and Ubisoft merely reached out to Steam to expand it's audience. Steam is the addition here.

[Sentient Entropy]

Rated Fatal eredeti hozzászólása:

Sentient Entropy eredeti hozzászólása:

This isn't Valve's call. The only way to stop seeing them is to send a message that you won't buy them.

Yes, but it takes more than one person.It's like Verizon Wireless has 80 million customers so they don't care if they lose one or 20, but if 20 million stand up and say, "we are tired of these $200 a month phone bills, we cancel our phone plans" then Verizon would lower their costs. As long as a group of people dont stand up and do something or boycott a product or service, these companies will continue to steal your money and your life information.

You are 100% absolutely right. It can't be "oh, a minority won't buy our games or use our product, but we're still in good shape." It has to be "we won't recover our costs on this project unless we convince people to buy it, and they won't because ____________", where blank in this case is "they added a stupid unnecessary launcher with a login and then got their servers hacked and the data compromised."

I, personally, haven't bought a product from EA or with a launcher in it in a while. The last one I bought with a launcher was Trials Evolution, and I bought that game before I was aware that RedLynx had been bought out by Ubisoft. Had I known I would have had to rethink my purchase.

[Dark Lord Satan Visit Your Bum]

ToasterOverlord eredeti hozzászólása:

Dirtman73 eredeti hozzászólása:

This issue isn't that we're dealing with Steam as a launcher, the issue is that publishers are tacking on their own game clients in addition to Steam. It's redundant, as well as being problemtatic in some cases -- Uplay's standalone Steam launcher is a grand example of that.

Yes, isn't it just convenient that Steam isn't an issue, just because it's your launcher of choice. Well, it is what I prefer as well, but the fact is that publishers are simply not tacking on their own game clients. Their games are designed to work with their game clients. The games that have clients (EA's games, Ubisoft's, etc) weren't designed to be played with Steam, but through thier respective launchers. EA and Ubisoft merely reached out to Steam to expand it's audience. Steam is the addition here.

No need to be so obtuse. Steam alone isn't the issue -- as a DRM service it does precisely what it's supposed to do, and it does it fine without interruption from janky 1st-party clients. I'd be fine with the AAA pubs dropping Steam's DRM scheme as a requisite for their games, but we all know that's never going to happen. The next best suggestion is to ask them to consider getting rid of their own clients; maybe that will never happen either, but it's certainly a more likely scenario.

If so many games weren't "designed" to be played with Steam, maybe the pubs shouldn't be releasing them on Steam to begin with?

[Sentient Entropy]

ToasterOverlord eredeti hozzászólása:

Dirtman73 eredeti hozzászólása:

This issue isn't that we're dealing with Steam as a launcher, the issue is that publishers are tacking on their own game clients in addition to Steam. It's redundant, as well as being problemtatic in some cases -- Uplay's standalone Steam launcher is a grand example of that.

Yes, isn't it just convenient that Steam isn't an issue, just because it's your launcher of choice. Well, it is what I prefer as well, but the fact is that publishers are simply not tacking on their own game clients. Their games are designed to work with their game clients. The games that have clients (EA's games, Ubisoft's, etc) weren't designed to be played with Steam, but through thier respective launchers. EA and Ubisoft merely reached out to Steam to expand it's audience. Steam is the addition here.

As I see it, Steam adds worthwhile features and treats its customers well enough to be trusted.

EA's Origin is a pretty blatant cash-grab, and UPlay unnecessarily locks up a bunch of stuff behind achievement points, calls the restricted content "rewards," and ties some of those achievements into Facebook. I have no desire to play oversimplified games on Facebook just to help Ubisoft flex some advertising muscle, and I am disappointed every time EA buys a developer because sometime in the future, all those talented people will be out of a job when EA kills off another studio. RIP Bullfrog, Westwood, et al.

[Insanity Claus]

donoghu eredeti hozzászólása:

To put it simply, anyone who's angry agains Origine, UPlay or G4WL because they launch it throught both steam and another launcher clearly don't understand that the stranger, there, is actually Steam.

And that should tell you just how screwed up the digital retail scene is. It's not just the other guys; Valve do it, too.

If you could buy L4D2 on Origin, for example, you should not have to use the Steam client to launch it. You should load up Orign and launch it. I understand still using the underlying platforms (ie: Steamworks fort matchmaking and other stuff), but you shouldn't have to launch a client only to log into another client, to log into a game. If I want to create a UPlay account, I should only have to dothat if I buy a game on UPlay. Otherwise, all of that stuff shold be under the table and handled discreetly via authenticated serial keys or via its respective launching client.

I understand why everyone is doing this. They each want a big slice of that increasing digital retail pie. But you see this every single time. Everybody chases the unicorn.

"It's a WoW killer!" Except they all failed. WoW is still around and still huge. Others have made their market, but no one has dethroned WoW.

"It's a CoD killer!" As much as I don't really like the current series' gameplay, it is hugely popular. Medal of Honor? No. Don't try. There'e some kind of magical design doc that Zampella and West came up with at IW that has the perfect mix of military jargon with badass gruff stuff to say and explosiv-ladden plots of Bruckheimer-esque grandiosity.

Now, everyone wants a Steam killer. The other big boys in the game industry want a piece of what Steam's got. I think competition is fine, and I'm fine with Origin and others. EA has been selling their games digitally since 2005. Steam didn't start doing 3rd party until 2007. Remember Impulse? GoG, GreenMan, GetGames, etc. are all good examples of competition that us not client-based.

Then you have the fanbase constantly getting pissed at Valve for not being able to meet up with what is a staggering level of ever-increasing demand. But when people wonder why Valve is pushing these new things along rather than refining everything into a polish, it's so they can stay a step ahead of their much, much, much larger competition. It's not an escuse, but it's the reality.

Still, there needs to be some kind of shift away from this gated community approach. It's not helpful and just makes mundane things more complicated. GabeN hinted at this when he talked about how Steam should just be an API, not a store directly controlled by Valve. I shouldn't have to worry about my info getting hacked from UPlay when all I want to do is play FarCry3 singeplayer.

Maybe they could make a FarCry series-specific account, then an individual game account. So, that way, when I buy FarCry 4 on Steam, I can log in to Steam, log in to UPlay, log in to the FarCry series account, then log into my FarCry 4 account to play a singleplayer game. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[Tito Shivan]

MonkeySeeker eredeti hozzászólása:

Dirtman73 eredeti hozzászólása:

Steam isn't the proper place for dictatorial demands.

Except you (maybe not YOU personally but people in this thread) want Steam to issue a dictatorial demand to other publishers that they remove their launchers or don't sell their games on Steam?

And publishers will tell "Well, see you later then, good luck with that" and move on to another distributor. There are lots of them eager to catch up what drops out of Steam. and get a bigger part of the cake.

[Cronos]

<3 bonus launchers

[Sentient Entropy]

Cronos Dage eredeti hozzászólása:

<3 bonus launchers

And how about Uplay getting hacked? <3 that too?

[ToasterOverlord]

Sentient Entropy eredeti hozzászólása:

As I see it, Steam adds worthwhile features and treats its customers well enough to be trusted.

EA's Origin is a pretty blatant cash-grab, and UPlay unnecessarily locks up a bunch of stuff behind achievement points, calls the restricted content "rewards," and ties some of those achievements into Facebook. I have no desire to play oversimplified games on Facebook just to help Ubisoft flex some advertising muscle, and I am disappointed every time EA buys a developer because sometime in the future, all those talented people will be out of a job when EA kills off another studio. RIP Bullfrog, Westwood, et al.

I agree, Steam does add worthwhile features. I really enjoy Steam and nothing else compares. I dislike both Origin and Uplay, so I don't see what you're getting at.

Dirtman73 eredeti hozzászólása:

No need to be so obtuse. Steam alone isn't the issue -- as a DRM service it does precisely what it's supposed to do, and it does it fine without interruption from janky 1st-party clients. I'd be fine with the AAA pubs dropping Steam's DRM scheme as a requisite for their games, but we all know that's never going to happen. The next best suggestion is to ask them to consider getting rid of their own clients; maybe that will never happen either, but it's certainly a more likely scenario.

If so many games weren't "designed" to be played with Steam, maybe the pubs shouldn't be releasing them on Steam to begin with?

Again, I never said Steam was the issue; Steam is great and it does it's job very well. Better than everyone else by a landslide. I happen to really like Steam. But it is possible for AAA publishers to ditch Steam: just take a look at EA with Origin (not like it compares though). But in the end, you are right, AAA publishers will never get rid of what Steam imposes. But in the end they also won't ditch their proprietary models/DRM or launchers/clients. Neither will happen. It's impossible to get 20 million people to flat out refuse to buy from publishers that use unfavorable launchers; their games are too good for everyone to give up. Those that choose to actually play them will be the strike-breakers so to speak, keeping those companies alive, and those same people that put up with those publishers know what it's really about: enjoying playing games instead of whining about how ineffecient it is to launch them.

[Kenny32673]

Sentient Entropy eredeti hozzászólása:

Cronos Dage eredeti hozzászólása:

<3 bonus launchers

And how about Uplay getting hacked? <3 that too?

Yeah Uplay were the first ones ever to get hacked. Steam has never been hacked...no wait, yeah it has.

[Sentient Entropy]

MonkeySeeker eredeti hozzászólása:

Sentient Entropy eredeti hozzászólása:

And how about Uplay getting hacked? <3 that too?

Yeah Uplay were the first ones ever to get hacked. Steam has never been hacked...no wait, yeah it has.

And Steam will probably get hacked again. That said, why would I want to give them two targets to get at my information (and/or password) when the second one doesn't do anything worthwhile? Maybe if Uplay were as good as Steam is this would be a different discussion, but as it stands Uplay is just the low-hanging fruit for hackers and ne'er-do-wells.

[ToasterOverlord]

Karl Marx eredeti hozzászólása:

I stopped reading at 'I am a hardcore gamer'

I should have done that. This thread is full of nothing but rage.

[TwoBit]

Anyone arguing for any one person, or company dominating the PC platform needs to remember why they are using steam in the first place.

The most Valve can do is refuse to include games on their service. So all those games you bought, you wouldnt be playing any way.

Uplay, Origin, they would still exist. Just not on Steam.

I agree it is hard to rember the passwords, and I also spend a lot of time playing 'Menu Hero' not wanting to start up Uplay, Origin or whatever. But that is more a problem that needs to be solved with passwords, and intercompany.

I do not want Steam to have the power to force anyone to do anything. Many companys have had that power before, and all of those have stoped inovating... McDonalds, Microsoft...

[Cronos]

stopped reading at "I am a hardcore gamer"