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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

#161

Post by LudwigNagasena »

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…

It's kind of weird how the same companies that can squeeze all possible computational abilities and use every tick that exists to force a computer to show amazing graphics with complex logic behind can't make a simple GUI.

Well, even Steam nowadays is kind of a wrapper for a browser.

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

#162

Post by [deleted] »

xxs wrote: post #132
Ekaros wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% from 0 to 10 million 25% from 10 to 50 million and 20% from 50 million on. They might have even better deals, but at some point 20% for handling everything and supporting payments with potential of fraud, chargebacks etc. in nearly every country should start look like not horrible deal. Remembering what the retail margins were back in the day when they needed to make and ship physical boxes...

>at some point 20% ... start look like not horrible deal Not, if you are Microsoft.

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by Macha »

uejfiweun wrote: post #135
BbzzbB wrote: post #114

Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? People, myself certainly included, often criticize Apple for taking 30% of developer revenue for merely existing in it's walled garden. Right or wrong, they control the ecosystem, so their ability to monopolize and heavily tax the App Store is unsurprising, they're exercising their pricing power as much as they possibly can. But how is it that on P…

I could totally see Microsoft trying to buy Steam in the near future. Not only are they having Bethesda do pro-Steam moves like this and generally supporting Steam, but they have a personal relationship with Valve, as Microsoft is where Gabe Newell started his career. However Valve is still a private company and I can't imagine Gaben will want to give up his money faucet.

Valve was started as a reaction to Microsoft. Back when they were game devs it was pretty much "Gabe and co want to develop their own games without corporate meddling". I can't see Valve selling until the early people are near retirement, and I'm sure they've had offers.

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

#164

Post by NelsonMinar »

BbzzbB wrote: post #114

Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? People, myself certainly included, often criticize Apple for taking 30% of developer revenue for merely existing in it's walled garden. Right or wrong, they control the ecosystem, so their ability to monopolize and heavily tax the App Store is unsurprising, they're exercising their pricing power as much as they possibly can. But how is it that on P…

Steam offers a lot of services around the core store. Achievements, save file cloud sync, a modest social network, DRM. All that stuff creates lock-in.

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

#165

Post by munk-a »

arka2147483647 wrote: post #134
BbzzbB wrote: post #114

Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? People, myself certainly included, often criticize Apple for taking 30% of developer revenue for merely existing in it's walled garden. Right or wrong, they control the ecosystem, so their ability to monopolize and heavily tax the App Store is unsurprising, they're exercising their pricing power as much as they possibly can. But how is it that on P…

My opinion: - Steam was first, and because of that; - They have all the features (both for users, and gamedevs) - They have all the Games - They have all the Users In particular, in the Gamedev side, Steam is not a Storefront, they are a platform, much like say, Xbox Live or PSN. For example Steam provides: - Friends - Leaderboard - Chat (Text and Voice) - Multiplayer/Network api, which handles routing and NAT punch…

I think you're underselling things a fair amount. Steam was first - but lots of first to market products under invest in R&D and end up playing catch-up feature wise... Valve has consistently shown they're willing to experiment with new feature and do-dads to make sure their platform remains competitive. Given all the revenue they draw out of Steam I think that's only fair - but a lot of companies in their position would cut their workforce and milk that cow until their founder could IPO and exit with a big wad of money.

The features you listed on the API side have almost all come in before competitors have tried to offer similar features - it's seriously impressive.

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

#167

Post by Macha »

samtheprogram wrote: post #126
NikolaNovak wrote: post #116

As a matter of principle, I think digital delivery platforms benefit from competition, and we should not be locked down into a single monopolistic, stagnating platform. As a selfish consumer though, I hugely wish we just had Steam and Netflix: The Origins and Uplays and Battle.nets of the world exist solely to make my life difficult, refusing to play my game when I want it due to obscure update required or forgotten…

> As a matter of principle… It’s not really a matter of principal though! > [the competing platforms] have zero repeat zero positively zero benefit to myself as a consumer. The reason Steam and Netflix are so good and continue to exist in such a good state is exactly because of the competition. However, because of exclusivity, licensing, ownership, et cetera, that also means you eventually may want to deal with said…

As a user, Steam and Netflix both provided more value to me prior to credible competition. Netflix used to be one €9.99 subscription to watch basically everything, Steam was the one stop shop to manage all my games. Basically all the features I care about on either were already well established before their competitors came around.

On the other hand, my Steam account now represents a very expensive point of failure should it somehow get hacked or Valve decides to robo ban me.

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

#168

Post by DanHulton »

BbzzbB wrote: post #114

Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? People, myself certainly included, often criticize Apple for taking 30% of developer revenue for merely existing in it's walled garden. Right or wrong, they control the ecosystem, so their ability to monopolize and heavily tax the App Store is unsurprising, they're exercising their pricing power as much as they possibly can. But how is it that on P…

Really simply? Because it's worth it. Nobody's "bowing to" Steam, they could sell off their own website for free, if they wanted. But Steam offers enough of a marketplace, enough tooling, and enough promotion that it's worth it to sell there.

It's what I want for the Apple App store, too. Don't charge any less, just make it worth it.

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

#169

Post by Macha »

beeboop wrote: post #110
015a wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course, battle.net 1.0 wasn't continuous with battle.net 2.0 which launched with starcraft and eventually subsumed wow and d3 accounts. If you had some account on battle.net for brood war, it died with the move to remastered.

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

#170

Post by monocasa »

munk-a wrote: post #150
monocasa wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it has some useful features doesn't invalidate the fact that the only reason it exists to the management that's in charge of it is as a hedge against Valve. They don't care if it's a net win for their users or not until it gets so bad that people stop buying their games.

I think there's plenty of room for pessimism when it comes to the games industry. But Valve has (when not occasionally making games which, let's face it, isn't very often these days) become a business dedicated to the business to selling games. It offers a platform that has provided several innovations for usability to consumers ahead of competitors (it isn't continuously playing catchup - they're proactively investi…

How does any of that support or deny my assertion that these per publisher launchers that you're forced to use regardless of where you bought the game only exist because large publishers hedging against their competitors?
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