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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

#101

Post by flerchin »

TOMDM wrote: post #80
mastax wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd hardly call 3rd party grey market key resellers like g2a something that steam accepts voluntarily. These keys are often stolen or pirated. The Steam subreddit has a page dedicated to it https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/wiki/dangersofkeyresellers The keys from these sites are frequently revoked after they're discovered stolen.

g2a is a buyer-beware scamfest for sure.

However, all of the sites listed at isthereanydeal.com I have tried are not that. It's not clear what the business model is, but they're absolutely depending on steam to deliver and maintain the content, and it's not clear that steam gets any money out of the transaction.

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

#102

Post by thereddaikon »

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.…

Our society is still learning about and adapting to digital goods. The end goal is obvious but unfocussed, we want digital goods to be treated like physical ones. But how do we get there? How do you craft laws to get that result and things still make sense? I'm not sure anyone knows that yet.

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

#103

Post by snailmailman »

belval wrote: post #18
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.

The Xbox app is a masterclass in how not to design a user interface, it is clunky, the menus don't go anywhere, they mixed terminology (some places have "Add friend" others have "Follow friend"), users with multiple screens will find their game launching on the non-principal one, language is tied to the OS so if you want your games in English but your Windows is in French you have to change the OS-level language. I d…

It’s awful. A lot of basic stuff is just missing.

I had an Xbox game pass trial. When it expired it closed the game I was playing. No message. When I tried to reopen the game nothing happened. None of my games worked. But most importantly, it never told me why. Nowhere in the interface does it communicate “your trial ended” or “hey resubscribe to game pass” or “you can’t play games anymore” instead everything just stops working with no explanation. I was midway through contacting support when I pieced together that maybe the trial ended, and confirmed that on their website. That information isn’t available in the desktop app.

(This was over a year ago, hopefully it’s fixed now?)

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

#104

Post by belval »

TOMDM wrote: post #80
mastax wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd hardly call 3rd party grey market key resellers like g2a something that steam accepts voluntarily. These keys are often stolen or pirated. The Steam subreddit has a page dedicated to it https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/wiki/dangersofkeyresellers The keys from these sites are frequently revoked after they're discovered stolen.

Frequently is a bit of an hyperbole, a lot of my games come from g2a and I never had one be revoked. Most of the time it's just people buying games when they are on discount and reselling after the discount has expired.

Bethesda games are a good example of that. You can pay 80$ for Skyrim VR or get it on g2a for 20$. This is just because the game is very frequently on sale for about that amount.

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

#106

Post by snailmailman »

vorpalhex wrote: post #8
kgwxd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Steam is a real value add, enough that I use it for non-steam games. Not only with proton or the controller db, but save-game sync, multiplayer invites, their server browser, and everything being tied to my login. Even managing my game library on steam is pleasant! And the social features they have are.. actually pretty useful. Having a friends list of people who I game with is nice, as is the ability to have low fri…

Another huge factor is the built in steam discussion forums. Any problems or questions with the game? There’s a dedicated forum for every game, easy to access. Sure lots of games have their own forum or subreddit, but smaller indie games sometimes don’t.

I’ve even gone to the steam discussion forums for games that are on Steam but I own elsewhere.

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

#107

Post by brendoelfrendo »

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…

Microsoft owns Bethesda, and has transitioned to primarily offering its games via Steam or via the Xbox app. I imagine that Bethesda is doing this to align with Microsoft; existing library through Steam (with potential to add them to the Xbox app if they join get added to GamePass, maybe), future releases through Steam and Xbox.

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

#108

Post by MikusR »

mattlondon wrote: post #98

They don't mention it, but I hope this means that their titles will now be available on geforce now. IIRC the previous approach of pulling their titles from geforce now et al was due to "exclusivity" or whatever and trying to force people into their ecosystem.

Microsoft has Xcloud. So it won't happen.

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

#109

Post by Ekaros »

pavon wrote: post #65
Hamuko wrote: post #2

I'm surprised that they're not migrating customer games to the Xbox store considering Bethesda is a subsidiary of Microsoft.

No kidding. The fact that they didn't even offer it as an option along-side Steam says a ton.

What I could actually guess is that they don't want sales there, but instead of subscriptions. Thus the games are already part of Game Pass so it might make more sense to move them to platform that players want. And those who want on their app, will pay monthly instead...

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

#110

Post by beeboop »

015a wrote: post #94
aparticulate wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sa…

Battle.net The Launcher doesn't pre-date Steam; it was released in the early 2010s. Previously, before Steam, Battle.net was a lot more nebulous, and would naturally have had less user lock-in. Games were individually distributed, and battle.net was more-so just an infrastructure-level system Blizzard used to coordinate online games, chat, etc. Even, IIRC, unified profiles weren't a thing until the early 2010s and th…

For context, battle.net the service has existed since 1996. Back in the day it was just used for the multiplayer component of games like Diablo and Warcraft. I think it's still meaningful to point this out because even if it wasn't a launcher like it is today, it was still a social media/communications platform which is a meaningful part of why people use certain launcher platforms/stores.
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