Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam • Hacker News Board

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#31

Post by shuntress » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:46 PM UTC

mFixman wrote: post #21

TillE wrote: post #5

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust that I'll be able to continue downloading my purchases for the foreseeable future? I trust that Steam will be around for a very long time. I can download DRM-free installers from GOG. Everyone else? I don't know, I have much less confidence.

Why is a launcher even needed? Isn't it better to provide downloads and payments from their website rather than paying 25% of transactions to Valve?

Why is a package repository even needed?

Managing a hundred different games from a dozen different sources is a pain.

If we lived in some fantasy utopia with standardized identity authentication and easily-verifiable-cryptographically-secure-proof-of-purchase then maybe distributed content distribution could make sense.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#32

Post by mikepurvis » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:47 PM UTC

mFixman wrote: post #21

TillE wrote: post #5

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust that I'll be able to continue downloading my purchases for the foreseeable future? I trust that Steam will be around for a very long time. I can download DRM-free installers from GOG. Everyone else? I don't know, I have much less confidence.

Why is a launcher even needed? Isn't it better to provide downloads and payments from their website rather than paying 25% of transactions to Valve?

The siblings mention some good ones, but another for Steam in particular is the console-like experience available via Big Picture mode. Not only is this a significant aesthetic/ergonomic step up from how you launch software directly from the desktop OS, but it's also able to do some niceties like automatically handling controller mapping— for example, presenting your PlayStation or Switch pad to games as an xinput device (which is the universal standard for PC gaming).

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#33

Post by adamrezich » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:47 PM UTC

mFixman wrote: post #21

TillE wrote: post #5

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust that I'll be able to continue downloading my purchases for the foreseeable future? I trust that Steam will be around for a very long time. I can download DRM-free installers from GOG. Everyone else? I don't know, I have much less confidence.

Why is a launcher even needed? Isn't it better to provide downloads and payments from their website rather than paying 25% of transactions to Valve?

we forget that before Steam, the digital downloads for AAA games scene was the wild effin' west. no idea if this ever changed but if you bought Spore at launch, you were limited in the number of times you could download and activate your purchased copy... and if you wanted more, you had to pay for it when the time came. without Steam we might still see various publishers imposing weird restrictions like this.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#34

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:48 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #27

I imagine this probably means the eventual death of Battle.net as well. Honestly though, it's time. Battle.net was incredible back in the day, but now it's just another annoying launcher that segments my friends lists.

I'm curious as to that one. As launchers go it's excellent, so I'm not sure if they want to get rid of it or expand it out to support more things - after all Microsoft, who can't even get app updates to work correctly in their own windows store on their own game launcher, just bought it along with a bunch of other stuff. I guess I should be annoyed that more non-blizzard stuff will end up on it, but boy oh boy has that particular ship sailed.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#35

Post by ajnin » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:48 PM UTC

mFixman wrote: post #21

TillE wrote: post #5

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust that I'll be able to continue downloading my purchases for the foreseeable future? I trust that Steam will be around for a very long time. I can download DRM-free installers from GOG. Everyone else? I don't know, I have much less confidence.

Why is a launcher even needed? Isn't it better to provide downloads and payments from their website rather than paying 25% of transactions to Valve?

Steam is very convenient for users, many people won't even consider buying a game if it's not on Steam. I guess they have more potential sales this way.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#36

Post by thfuran » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #24

TillE wrote: post #5

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust that I'll be able to continue downloading my purchases for the foreseeable future? I trust that Steam will be around for a very long time. I can download DRM-free installers from GOG. Everyone else? I don't know, I have much less confidence.

I see this as is something that legislation could fix: digital licenses should be transferable between digital stores. If I buy a game in store X, and it’s available on store/platform Y, I should be able to play it on both. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the case. I recently bought a Nintendo Switch, and although I’m happy overall, some games have very heavy limits built in (think: max number of units in games),…

I think that has no sound legal basis but I also don't think that's practical. A launcher like steam isn't just a client-side application and I don't think it makes sense to compel some company to incur the costs of supporting their competitor's customers, which is what that would amount to.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#37

Post by charcircuit » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

mFixman wrote: post #21

TillE wrote: post #5

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust that I'll be able to continue downloading my purchases for the foreseeable future? I trust that Steam will be around for a very long time. I can download DRM-free installers from GOG. Everyone else? I don't know, I have much less confidence.

Why is a launcher even needed? Isn't it better to provide downloads and payments from their website rather than paying 25% of transactions to Valve?

>to provide downloads

There are 2 problems with this.

1. You can't downloaded patches of game updates (with good ux). You would need to downloaded the entire game for every update which is bad.

2. You can't install the game to the system without a program.

>and payments from their website

Steam can provide less friction to make a payment since someone likely already has payment information attached to their account. A 25% cut is worth it if they can make more than 25% revenue than they otherwise would have made.

There is also the marketing potential of being in the steam store. Gamers looking for a new game can see / find your game. You can see people on your friends list playing your game. You can see friends reviewing the game or getting achievements on your feed.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#38

Post by rainonmoon » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #27

I imagine this probably means the eventual death of Battle.net as well. Honestly though, it's time. Battle.net was incredible back in the day, but now it's just another annoying launcher that segments my friends lists.

Why would this have anything to do with Battle.net? There are not insignificant portions of the playerbase fully bought into that ecosystem (like... every World of Warcraft player, for a start.) The Launcher itself has been around for almost 10 years; the network has been around for twice that. Bethesda's launcher on the other hand was always an afterthought.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#39

Post by jcranmer » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

kgwxd wrote: post #7

kevingadd wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Players have spoken and a LOT of them prefer Steam.

Players should be saying they don't want "launchers" at all. They provide no benefit that couldn't be done a better way.

Launchers are bundling roughly 4 main services into one: (a) automatic update, (b) storefront, (c) mod portal, and (d) social networking.

The most important services are of course the first two, and in this sense, you can think of them as basically something like apt, but built with software that requires you provide proof purchase before downloading it. This helps explain why having to use multiple launchers provokes such frustration among users--it means you basically have two package managers running on your system.

Maybe if software update were a part of standard OS services, it wouldn't be such an issue, but as it isn't [on desktops], another platform providing such services becoming popular for doing so shouldn't be surprising.

Re: Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

#40

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #15

notjustanymike wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always forget what a pain in ass it was to download patches before Steam existed.

With "just don't do it" being perhaps the most common solution.

But then people forget that the bugs back then were just as bad as today, you would get crashes literally every 15 minutes, and some were hilariously malicious - Pool of Radiance (late 90's version) would straight up nuke your C:\ drive if you uninstalled it from the non-default location.