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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

#81

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ivraatiems wrote: post #52

Thank goodness. Bethesda's launcher was uniquely awful in a number of unpleasant ways. Slow, prone to crashes, bad user communication, not suitable for use on small monitors. The worst of the launcher apps I have used - and there are so many! I remember when it was in vogue for every game maker to build their own launcher or even full Steam clone - when EA pulled all its new games from Steam to get people to use Orig…

More than likely Valve has offered better deals to these larger companies to get them back in-house. It's very probable EA, Bethesda, Microsoft, etc. all have gotten more favorable terms now, by proving they were willing to leave Steam and roll their own launcher.

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

#82

Post by Ekaros »

legitster wrote: post #70
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.

I just wonder how could duplicating the license key be prevented. First by small group and then maybe just stolen from someone. While also preventing loss of it with let's say device.

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

#83

Post by ethbr0 »

mastax wrote: post #68
TOMDM wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pretty sure Steam is using early-Gmail accounting: the cost of the services they provide will continue to decrease, while the revenue per user (read: future, lifetime Steam purchases) will stay flat or increase.

Consequently, it's good business to onboard them, even at an immediate loss.

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

#84

Post by ocdtrekkie »

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.

There's a lot more to Battle.net than most launchers. For one, it's really deeply integrated into like every Blizzard game's chat and friends system. It'd be hard to imagine Blizzard retooling World of Warcraft's chat to accept messages from Steam users, but at present players in WoW and say Heroes of the Storm can chat with each other inside the games.

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

#85

Post by mey »

legitster wrote: post #70
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.

The block chain may be able to validate a license to a copy of the game, but that doesn't encompass hosting/delivery of content. The actual content of NFTs, tiny PNGs, are still hosted behind a URL. Putting 60+GB AAA titles out there for all time isn't something a Blockchain itself can solve.

I also don't know how IPFS people would feel if they became the CDN for commercial software.

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by sbarre »

ivraatiems wrote: post #52

Thank goodness. Bethesda's launcher was uniquely awful in a number of unpleasant ways. Slow, prone to crashes, bad user communication, not suitable for use on small monitors. The worst of the launcher apps I have used - and there are so many! I remember when it was in vogue for every game maker to build their own launcher or even full Steam clone - when EA pulled all its new games from Steam to get people to use Orig…

With the rise of the Epic Game Store, I think there's more competition in the launcher/store space and I bet the big publishers got better deals which removed the need for them to invest in the ongoing development and maintenance of their own stores/launchers.

It can't be that cheap to maintain an app like Origin or UPlay and all the associated infrastructure, etc..

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

#88

Post by dharmab »

agilob wrote: post #59
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)

It says "Dead Island Riptide" is delisted, but I still have it in my library and still can install it, background image doesn't load. There is another "Purchase disabled" category, looks like it cant be bought anymore, but can be installed.

Delisted usually means "purchase disabled and also store page hidden". Delisted is most common due to IP issues such as expired rights.

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #86
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.

[deleted]

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by tempnow987 »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #11
mastax wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has been happy-ish to have their games on Steam for a while now. They probably would've gone all-in on the Xbox store if the windows store (backend) wasn't so shitty.

Windows store is really bad. The UI, the UX, the lag, the jank, all designed to spoil your day

Literally how is the windows store so bad! Sometimes I'm not signed in and don't want to be signed in (setting up a new machine for someone else). The flows are just horrible.

On the mac the store makes things, in general, easier. On windows its comedy. I wonder how many folks like myself now just instinctively avoid it.

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