I'm glad it's highlighted on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in particular, because that was the first game I'd bought from Ubisoft in years, and the extra launcher deterred me from considering buying any of their other games for a long while still. EA still has launchers on older games like It Takes Two and A Way Out and Dragon Age II and Inquisition that create obstacles for LInux compatibility and offline play, but newer titles like Split Fiction and The Veilguard no longer have the extra launcher problem. It's good to see Ubisoft following this trend, and hopefully they can stop standing in the way of their own success.

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[–] 44 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Fully agree. I think that Steam should make it a platform requirement that external launchers cannot be used on the platform.

It makes zero sense for me to hit play just to have a third party launcher open, and I have to hit play in that third party launcher as well. and I have to hit play in that third party launcher as well. At that point, I'm better off just buying it through the third party launcher.

The whole third-party launcher update process is also obnoxious.. Every gatcha game does it. what's the point of using steam at that point

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  • [–] 49 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    At that point, I'm better off just buying it through the third party launcher.

    Which is exactly why companies like Ubisoft are so dead set on forcing 3rd party launchers down everybody's throats. They want to drag you out of the Steam ecosystem so they can pocket a bigger piece of the pie and infect your computer with god knows what.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Yeah, which is why I think it doesn't make sense that Steam allows it in the first place. Like, it's actively letting a direct competitor use your platform. You get none of the benefits and all of the upkeep.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 hours ago (1 child)

    They get a 30% cut of every sale and also get to say "we're not a monopoly." In the business world, that's a win win.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago*

    I kinda get that for premium games but, huge offenders of this are free to play gatcha style games. Which all transactions are off platform via their own launcher system. I don't think steam gets a cut on those. The monopoly thing has merit though, they have been super concerned about that ruling the last few years.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 day ago

    Especially now, where "TV PCs" are a thing (Steam Machine et al.) It's annoying as FUCK to launch a fresh game on my Deck connected to my TV, only to have to get up 3 minutes later to fiddle with the shitass launcher.

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