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Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam

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

#41

Post by res0nat0r »

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 provides a massive CDN infrastructure, SDK / API integrations for all kinds of things, release manager etc. Plus just being on their ecosystem helps sales too. I personally can't stand any other game launchers and just wish I could get everything on Steam.

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

#42

Post by gjsman-1000 »

thfuran wrote: post #36
stingraycharles wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surprisingly, Disney figured this out for movies with their "Movies Anywhere" service, powered by something they call KeyChest. You create a "Movies Anywhere" account, and then link digital stores (iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu) to that account. All movies that you purchased from participating studios then appear on all of the linked stores.

It actually works quite well. I can purchase a movie on the Roku Movie Store (powered by Vudu) and have it appear as purchased on my Apple TV with iTunes, and all of the big studios are members so not that many films are missing.

You also now get a Movies Anywhere code in the box of most Blu-ray purchases, which works exactly like you would expect and appears on all the stores as if it were a Roku or Apple TV purchase. (Ultraviolet codes are grandfathered in if you have any of those.)

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

#44

Post by Ekaros »

shuntress wrote: post #31
mFixman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

DRM with NFT on distributed blockchain sounds like fun mess to solve. With DRM operating correctly and not allowing duplication of licenses and content being permanently on blockchain so game developer going bankrupt wouldn't kill it...

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

#45

Post by ocdtrekkie »

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),…

The thing is: This has happened without legislation in a very related industry: First via Ultraviolet, and then through Movies Anywhere. Digitally-purchased movies sync between Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Vudu, Comcast, Verizon, and DirectTV. Movies from Disney, Sony, Universal, and Warner Brothers all sync. Imagine the challenge of getting all these tech and entertainment competitors on the same page, and it happened.

The problem, however, is Valve. Monopolies have no incentive to open up to sharing with outside entities. Steam likes to seem open with abilities to hand out keys and such and a good API, but the reality is it is all in service of keeping people locked to their platform. Meanwhile, GOG has shown a willingness to hand out licenses for games you own on Steam, Epic Games has talked about being open to such initiatives, etc.

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

#46

Post by mobilio »

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),…

In theory this sound simple.

But in particle this bridge between stores is anti-GDPR and can be abused from some stores.

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

#47

Post by jka »

dtech wrote: post #22
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.

Even if Steam will be going away at some point, I bed an archival effort will start similar to what we've seen for Geocities etc.

There's already at least one effort to gather a list of games that are no longer available* on Steam: https://steam-tracker.com/

I wonder how many of those can be retrieved (and are playable) from archived copies?

Edit: available meaning "available for purchase" (my mistake, thanks for the corrections)

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

#48

Post by Ekaros »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #42
thfuran wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surprisingly, Disney figured this out for movies with their "Movies Anywhere" service, powered by something they call KeyChest. You create a "Movies Anywhere" account, and then link digital stores (iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu) to that account. All movies that you purchased from participating studios then appear on all of the linked stores. It actually works quite well. I can purchase a movie on the Roku Movie Store (po…

Gog did at one point have gog.com/connect service. Which allowed linking your Steam account and retrieving what games you had there. Then providing your copies on GoG. Still entirely doable and I think nothing stops implementing similar thing.

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

#49

Post by ascagnel_ »

thfuran wrote: post #36
stingraycharles wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Steam is an interesting case, because it actually allows others to sell games on their platform -- developers can generate an unlimited number of keys for Steam, and sell those on third-party key sellers. The biggest limitation that Valve puts in place is that the developer can't undercut the Steam storefront _only when selling those keys_ (ie: if a developer sets up their own storefront that doesn't use Steam keys, they can sell on that storefront without price restrictions).

Moving outside of PC games, I think things get very hard to argue for cross-portability. Each platform has a unique (closed-source) tech stack, and that requires paying developers to write code to take advantage of the features available on each of those platforms. Since portability incurs measurable costs, it's hard to argue, for me, that users shouldn't bear some of the brunt of those costs. If legislation were already in place, such a price could be built in to the product.

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

#50

Post by TOMDM »

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),…

This sounds like it could produce nightmare scenarios for some platforms/consumers.

Say I'm a publisher; I can sell my games for 5% cheaper than all the competing platforms and let my installer/store languish. All it needs to do is let people buy the game, and my competitors can do the hard work of actually distributing the game, updating it, supporting features like community pages, friend lists, steam workshop etc.

People buy the game from me because it's cheaper, and the other platforms can pay the actual cost of supporting that license.

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