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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

#61

Post by adamrezich »

jasonm89 wrote: post #56
adamrezich wrote: post #19

nice, about time. I wonder if e.g. Quake Champions would've flopped as hard as it did if it was just released on Steam at launch instead of moved there later. I had a ton of fun with it despite its controversial formula changes, and the soundtracks (there's two, you can pick one or both, the second one is by Andrew Hulshult) are really good.

TIL that there is a new Quake. I know what I'm doing tonight.

if you're not an über-purist and/or you haven't had some good ol' deathmatchin' in awhile, you'll have a great time. the difference between QC and Q3:A/QL/etc. is that you pick a Champion character to play as, with unique health/armor/speed stats, as well as an ultimate ability. there's no restrictions on who can pick which champion (like Overwatch for example), and it's kind of like a "Super id Bros." as far as the characters go (still no Orbb though...). I played quite a bit of the game and while I tried some of the other champions, the default Ranger feels the most "right".

the music is great too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj21GFbEQog

maybe I should reinstall tonight too...

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

#62

Post by EamonnMR »

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.

Battle.net when it was IRC was a great time.

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

#63

Post by agilob »

Ekaros wrote: post #57
jka wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Delisted means no longer sold. Unless developer does something shady those games can still be downloaded and played (any third-party DRM not withstanding)

How is "delisted" different from "purchase disabled"?

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

#64

Post by aparticulate »

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.

The population of Battle.net is WAY bigger than the tiny fraction of players using Bethesda launcher. Hard to know from the outside but it's probably like 95%+ Steam even on their newest games. NexusMods, the largest Bethesda modding host rarely mentions the launcher even if mods are compatible.

Battle.net on the other hand predates Steam and they made some of the most significant PC-only games of all time.

Having said that, I think you might be right for a different reason. Blizzard will likely eat a massive amount of humble pie post-2021 and Steam releases would seem like a reasonable gesture of to restoring community goodwill.

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

#66

Post by aloisdg »

TOMDM wrote: post #50
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),…

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.…

Fix price will solve that to. France did it for books. A kind of mfrp: Manufacturer's Fixed Retail Price.

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

#67

Post by sbarre »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #53
causi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect we're less than five years away from seeing everyone's Stadia purchases evaporate.

I've been saying from day one that Stadia should have offered a subscription service similar to what Microsoft is doing with Game Pass. I don't want to pay full-price for games that require someone else maintaining hardware, especially when they're not booking any recurring revenue.

Google would have struggled to get a catalogue for their subscription I think, if only because they had to convince publishers (some that would consider Stadia to be competition) to put in work to get games running on their platform.

I wonder if they tried the subscription thing first but then gave up and just went with the buy model as a least-worst choice at a point in the cycle where it was too late to back out of the whole endeavour.

Stadia uses custom hardware so games can't just run on Stadia as-is, they have to be ported, which requires investment from the game's developers (or a porting shop).

I have to imagine most publishers that Google approached expected them to foot some of the bill for that work, if not all of it.

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

#68

Post by mastax »

TOMDM wrote: post #50
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),…

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.…

Steam (and other stores, to a lesser extent) already does this voluntarily. There's an ecosystem of key sellers of various levels of sketchiness - greenmangaming, g2a, cdkoffers - check isthereanydeal.com. It's almost always cheaper than steam, and you get a steam key. Steam gets most of the upkeep cost, and none (?) of the revenue.

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

#69

Post by mannerheim »

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?

Maybe if you're on Windows, but I've found Steam is pretty reliable on what games will work on Linux, and I figure I can probably get a refund if it doesn't (which I haven't even had to).

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

#70

Post by legitster »

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.

This is something blockchain would actually be very good at solving.

Download a legal copy of the game from anywhere. No DRM, but your license key gets checked against the blockchain.

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