this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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I guess they're giving up on convincing people to download their launcher.

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[–] [email protected] 207 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

Not gonna play them if they include their launcher after game is started from Steam lol.

EDIT: I am very happy to hear that everyone hates them. EA as well as Rockstar has shown that their launchers are shit. On Steam Deck EA games often fail to start at all due to EA launcher updates, and Rockstar launcher takes around 3-5 minutes to start a fucking game (which should start instantly).

[–] [email protected] 95 points 1 year ago

This should be unacceptable. Launchers are bloatware.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I don't understand what the point of a blizzard launcher is - steam is already a launcher.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Ads. Ads and data harvesting.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Mike Ybarra confirmed on the bird site that these games will launch directly through Steam, no bundled launcher nonsense.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (33 children)

I really wish Steam would put their foot down and stop these launchers. They are nothing but a nuisance and add no value for the customer.

EDIT: Just to be clear, when EA Play joined Gamepass there wasn't a separate launcher when you went to play an EA game on the Xbox. Steam could make this work with them and the other companies. They have enough pull to make this work - it would be greatly welcomed.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

According to the steam page it says it only requires a battle.net account. Usually it says when another launcher is required.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Never touched my Blizzard Account again after the sexual harassment and paygap scandal.

I've put 15 years of lifetime into my druid... It still hurts a little because I've loved WoW for a long time.

So Blizz switching to Steam couldn't interest me any less.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same after they kowtowed to China about Hong Kong and Taiwan.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now I'm not gonna buy/play them on steam too

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Glad they made this decision right after the worst patch in Diablo history

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

I love this! Finally there’s going to be actual statistics to see how much their games are actually dying.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean that's cool an all, but why not mark the occasion by giving us Overwatch 1 back? That'd be real neato

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe it will come back as Overwatch classic.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

“You think you want it but you don’t”

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Blizzard had plans to dump the launcher shortly after D3 2.0 dropped. Then they backpedaled and where like no wait launcher is great! 🤷‍♂️

“Players on Steam will still have to connect Overwatch 2 to a Battle.net account, but they’ll have access to all of Steam’s amenities like their friends list and achievements.”

Lol. Okay then.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Link to original news source on Blizzard.com https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23982127/overwatch-2-coming-to-steam-on-august-10

Link to the Steam Page https://store.steampowered.com/app/2357570/Overwatch_2/

Finally, so much people will join, that I'm sure someone will fix the Proton bug where the mouse pointer loses focus and you have to tab out and back in to regain focus after respawning. Hell, there are so many heroes that don't require precise aiming, that it would even make it a playable game on the Steam Deck.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (16 children)

People love a monopoly when it suits them

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

Steam is the best platform by far, and the only one with Linux support. It's not Valve's fault if other publishers aren't even trying to make a good product.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

People love things that benefit them as consumers and hate things that don't, end of

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It wouldnt be so notable if they just let me download the game by itself. If I have to download a fucking launcher every time then I want the games to be centralized atleast somewhat.

Seriously every fucking conpany a fucking launcher for a while there, even fucking bethesda had one.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I doubt anyone will complain if Blizzard's games are brought to other storefronts too.

I like Steam. Steam has the best features, best UI, good sales, and while they are not without faults (systems can stay unchanged for a long time!), they are run by a company that by and large respects its userbase.

I don't mind if games are brought to Steam and any or all other storefronts. Put it on GOG, Windows Store, EGS, Itch.io, battlenet, Origin, Uplay... You name it, I approve of it going there also. If those other storefronts want me to use them, they need to provide a comparable or superior experience. GOG comes the closest, but its inability to get games in a timely or predictable manner, if at all, is too much of an obstacle for me.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Awww, they are such a good guys. They are doing this for us and they want to make sure they respect user's choice. Totally it's not the fact Overwatch2 is not earning anything and other games have been in decline since Activision merger.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

i'd be okay with having diablo on my steam library. too bad i bought them all on battle.net....

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Lol. I have hundreds of hours on OW (NOT OW2) and Diablo III (not IV), and i can safely say I forgo ever playing those 2 games again because of the toxic entity that is Acti-Blizz. Not that I have much choice considering OW cannot even be played as its own game now.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Great news for Linux users! Bnet was one of the better launchers, but having a launcher for 5 games is a bit silly.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

I still think they're gonna just launch Blizzard.net anyways, similar to Ubisoft games and EA games. Let's not get too ahead now.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You still have to use Battle.net, so that's an absolute no-go from me.

Glad they're giving folks options though.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You need a battlenet login, but not the launcher

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

The launcher isn't really the problem, it's the fact that Overwatch 2 isn't making them any money!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Reading the comments I tend to think that people are so unfamiliar with competition that they fail to recognize it when seeing it at work: if you have competition, stuff fails and dies. This idea that everything should survive and that I as the user should be the receptacle of thousands of shitty products preaching variety as an excuse for their existence is insane. Launchers existed, could have used IP as an advantage to develop a valid product instead failed and therefore will disappear. I still use GOG Galaxy no problem alongside Steam.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Battle.net has been around since at least StarCraft 1. I'm glad Blizzard is showing signs of throwing in the towel when better storefronts/launchers are available

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I can nearly guarantee you that once you download it from Steam servers that it will require the Battle.net launcher.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Pretty obviously trying to pull an "Apex Legends" to try and save the flailing Overwatch 2.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not a hardcore gamer but I'm a fan of cloud gaming, first Google Stadia (rip) and later Gforce Now. And Gforce Now supports Steam games so the more games available in the Steam-catalogue, the better.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This is really good and really bad news.

On the plusside, it really seems like running Battle.net is not a requirement, and it just logs in the bnet account once ingame. Two thumbs up. More availability and people being able to use Steam as a somewhat sensible launcher instead of the frankly annoying Battle.net, even better.

On the downside, I guess this also confirms beyond the investors call that OW2 is bleeding players quickly - and for good reason, since they've shown they cannot handle the fundamental design changes from the switch to 5v5 at all.

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