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Steam keeps on winning
(www.pcgamer.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Why is it so hard for companies to build a game launcher that doesn't suck? Is it just a lowest bidder situation?
Steam sucked, really bad. For 8 years, maybe? Maybe more? It takes time to build something, but consumers demand everything immediately.
GIF from that period.
I wish I had a use for that.
I mean steam sucked for 8 years like 20 years ago. Technology wasn’t the same as it is. They revolutionized the pc gaming scene and I’d argue that even that Steam version was better than the current EGS version. Was it uglier? Yea maybe but it did the job. You could install, manage and launch your games, cloud saves and it wasn’t bloat or spyware. The Steam just kept getting better even if with a messy ui in some places. They do a ton of shit that generates them no direct profit but that makes using Steam a no brainer. And gamers respect and value that even if not all of them.
Heck I’m sure that they very quickly came up with a functional shopping cart at the very least.
Steam has been offering third-party titles since 2005 but still had no shopping cart as of 2008.
So 3 years? How long did that take epic? About the same time almost 2 decades later?
..... Because years later, steam got good.
Epic started out shit, and then used their fortnite money to impro... No, wait, sorry, they used their fortnite money to buy exclusivity of games people had already preordered from other stores.
Starting out shit and then slowly improving is one thing. Starting out shit and then kicking your customers in the teeth is completely different.
No, not exclusivity. Pointedly spending large amounts of money to take already purchased games away from people.
Exclusivity isnt a new concept. Im still patiently waiting for the next horizon game to come to PC at all. Exclucivity isnt kicking your customers in the teeth.
Wagging your fortnite cash in peoples faces by showing them you can take away what they already paid for is the kick in the teeth.
And, more importantly, it showed me how they value me. They will spend extra money to directly inconvenience me in the hopes Im stupid enough to pay them for inconveniencing me. Bad launcher? Thats fine, blizzards launcher is dogshit and I played overwatch for years. Exclusivity again, fine. Ill wait if Im really going to be stubborn, and I wont if I really want the game.
But going out of their way to antagonize other users of the competition, as if Im supposed to find that cute and rebuy what I already purchased at a store I already chose? Zero respect for your customers means you will do the same or worse to me even if I am stupid enough to pay you, if you think antagonizing me again will wiggle out more of my money.
Fuck them forever, they cannot rebuild that trust. The only reason they havent done it again is because steam changed their tos. And they will do it to you as soon as they think theyve got a stable userbase
You really are not listening. You are going off on old grudges that have literally nothing to do with what I am saying to you.
I get it. Steam kicked your childhood dog. That has nothing to do with epic buying a game out of peoples mouths.
Show me when steam forced people who had paid for a game from a completely different retailer to rebuy the game on steam, while completely deactivating the copy that was already purchased.
They made you re-purchase half life? If you owned half life, you had to rebuy half life again on the steam page?
Or they launched a new launcher, and did what every single other game publisher does when they launch a new launcher, and ported all of their own personal titles into the launcher?
Because with metro exodus, until mass backlash caused them to revert the decision, everyone who had preordered the game on steam needed to refund the purchase and repurchase it within the epic store. Only after backlash did they honor steam prepurchases.
And even then, they struggled with the fact that all the physical orders still had steam codes, despite the game apparently not being allowed to be owned on steam.
All of this happening 2 weeks before the game release.
Interesting, because in your previous comment you said literally the exact opposite, that people just needed to open it via the launcher to get the next update.
My previous comment already says this. With metro exodus, they expected people to rebuy the game on epic, and only reversed the decision after the immediate backlash.
Which, mind you, is not a game they developed nor published. Your valve example is the owner of the game moving their own game into their own brand new launcher, with conflicting claims of repurchase. Epics example is buying out a random hyped games release and scrambling to backtrack after it blew up in their face
Yea no
People complain because the EGS launcher is shit and not getting better in any meaningful way. Plus all the anti consumer shit that they do.
EGS didn’t come out last year. Heck GOG galaxy is fairly decent and it’s not even required and they have a fraction of the budget. And guess what a lot of people like and support them.
Origin is still bad and so is whatever Ubisoft's launcher is called.
edit: for the record I didn't say that steam was the best launcher, but I have found the launchers for world of warships and warthunder to be serviceable
Origin is now the "EA App" and Uplay is now "Ubisoft Connect"
They can't even keep consistent branding.
they change the names because they suck
Ea app is origin without linux compatibility
It's kind of funny. I feel that the rebranding was because those launchers sucked ( a common marketing tactic.) The thing is though, the EA App still sucks so it doesn't do anything for its reputation.
I mean steam sucked for 8 years like 20 years ago. Technology wasn’t the same as it is. They revolutionized the pc gaming scene and I’d argue that even that Steam version was better than the current EGS version. Was it uglier? Yea maybe but it did the job. You could install, manage and launch your games, cloud saves and it wasn’t bloat or spyware. The Steam just kept getting better even if with a messy ui in some places. They do a ton of shit that generates them no direct profit but that makes using Steam a no brainer. And gamers respect and value that even if not all of them.
Heck I’m sure that they very quickly came up with a functional shopping cart at the very least.
I think it's just priorities, those other companies weren't interested in making a launcher, they were interested in tying their customers into their eco system.
Steam started out like that in appearance at least, nobody really wanted it and it was kind of forced on you if you wanted to play HL2 but since Valve seemed to understand the value in a platform like steam and actually work at making it good it became pretty good.
At this point it's actually kind of hard to fully appreciate how much work has gone into steam. Not just the basic stuff like chat and forums and a store with a functioning search, or the banal stuff like inventories and trading cards and points I still don't understand, but also the stuff most people don't see like all the stuff for developers launching a game on steam and managing sales and keys and betas. Not to mention all the experiments they've done along the way to try and figure out what the best way forward is.
Steam is kind of a huge undertaking and unless a company is really invested in competing with it they're simply not going to be able to.
Data, they were also interested in that sweet, sweet, data harvesting. Previously only Valve was grabbing all that via Steam.
If your goal was only to make a good launcher, it would be easy. If your goal is a lot of DRM shenanigans as if we were still in 1998, it’s really hard.
IMO my favorite launcher to use out of all is probably Battle.net, even over Steam. This is probably mostly because Steam is terrible unresponsive and its startup is still kinda ass (I just tested the start and noticed its 3 fucking loading screens: Verifying installtion, Logging in and finally loading the page. All as separate windows).
Wow. Ive never heard someone say something positive about battle net
Yeah I agree. I don't play Blizzard Activision games for other reasons, but the battle.net launcher was by far the best.
I don't get why, when PC gamers spend thousands to get a quick, smooth machine, that they put up with the shitfest that is Valve. I mean, it's 2023 why is the UI still a website? Why is it that I can't stop the news from popping up? And it's so damn unresponsive and laggy.
well, I don't think battle.net is the worst launcher