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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

#231

Post by oAlbe »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #205
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are a couple of highly technical, highly capable game studios. Bethesda isn't one of them. Most game studios produce poorly optimized junk and are barely managing to ship a working product.

> There are a couple of highly technical, highly capable game studios.

Which ones are those?

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

#232

Post by jmyeet »

Danieru wrote: post #214
jmyeet wrote: post #130

Kill all the launchers. Ubisoft, Rockstar, Bethesda (RIP), Epic. I really hate these mediocre "me too" wannabe social network / launchers. I'm actually surprised this hasn't been rolled into the Xbox launcher, which still exists right (on PC)?

So how are you going to buy games if you've killed all the launchers. No Steam, no Epic, no GOG Galaxy. Are you going to download everything over http from your browser?

The same way you installed that launcher: by downloading it and running it.

For the record, I have no issue with Steam's launcher because it basically works (although it gets slammed on big releases, which is an issue) and it doesn't force you into a nonexistent social network.

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

#233

Post by ihuman »

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.

> No DRM, but your license key gets checked against the blockchain

Isn't that DRM?

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

#234

Post by baby »

ryandrake wrote: post #139
jmyeet wrote: post #130

Kill all the launchers. Ubisoft, Rockstar, Bethesda (RIP), Epic. I really hate these mediocre "me too" wannabe social network / launchers. I'm actually surprised this hasn't been rolled into the Xbox launcher, which still exists right (on PC)?

Thank you. I already have a "launcher" for my programs. It's called my computer's operating system. I don't understand why I should need to run a program just to have it run another program.

Have any of you used steam?

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

#235

Post by selfhoster11 »

rkido wrote: post #224
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…

That Steam was a first-mover is basically irrelevant. PC gamers are a particularly demanding audience and they will abandon your product in a heartbeat if a vastly superior one comes along. For instance, TeamSpeak and to a lesser extent Ventrilo and Mumble more or less dominated voice chat for many years. Then Discord came along and those older products became irrelevant practically overnight. Valve uses its 30% cut…

Steam game libraries routinely become worth hundreds or thousands of dollars as you spend more money to acquire digital goods. You can't move those to a different account, sell the entire account safely, or activate the titles you already own on a new platform. Nobody would spend all that money on repurchasing all their games just because the EA launcher is more shiny.

The lock-in cost is real and literal. It's far easier to migrate to a different voice comms system (which is free, usually), since you only have to convince your existing social network to create an account on the new thing.

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

#236

Post by _carbyau_ »

FranchuFranchu wrote: post #208
eatsyourtacos wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam- * Just works * It's simple * Cloud saves all of my games (with a few exceptions when the game developer doesn't enable it for whatever reason, this has only been for a few games so I'm not sure why) * Family sharing - this is HUGE for me. I can't re-buy every single game for my kids, so the fact that they can just play a game I purchased on their own account when I'm not online is an insane life saver. * Steam…

The thing I like the most about Steam, and this outmatches everything else, is the regional price localization. 60 USD is not worth the same around the world, and Steam compensates for it.

This is the thing Australians hate. We don't get a straight $ for $ conversion. As a general rule we get charged more for the same digital download because of regional pricing.

A reasonable price has to be found by buying steam keys from [HumbleBundle/GreenManGaming/etc].

I don't play the latest anymore. I will wait a year or two and get it on sale. I get a patched, solid game with well known reviews and the community wiki already filled out(so valuable in many modern games!), for much cheaper AND with that much cheaper price I don't have to worry so much about being gouged because my digital download has to travel further...

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

#237

Post by derac »

oAlbe wrote: post #231
throwaway09223 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of highly technical, highly capable game studios. Bethesda isn't one of them. Most game studios produce poorly optimized junk and are barely managing to ship a working product.

> There are a couple of highly technical, highly capable game studios. Which ones are those?

Naughty Dog is (big) one that comes to mind immediately. Check out their GDC talks. GDC in general is a good place to find in depth technical talks from devs.

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

#238

Post by nonbirithm »

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…

At two ends of the spectrum, there are monopolies and then there is fragmentation. It feels like, hypothetically, massive consolidations of power/monopolies can be broken up with regulation, and that would be better for competition. But if in practice consumers only ever go back to the storefront/service that is functionally superior and that most people use, would it make enough of a difference in the long run? If there was finally enough regulation to allow alternative app stores on iOS, what exactly would motivate enough consumers to care about the new alternatives? (Knowing that timed exclusives on PC tend to generate considerable pushback.)

There is no option to force consumers to use the other products with regulation. They will only be driven by the competence/exclusives/network effects of other platforms. Maybe the end outcomes of having multiple options will simply be a partial result of how competent the other development teams are in comparison to the larger and objectively better platforms, in spite of the fact that consolidation is considered bad in principle. It seems to be getting harder and harder for even large entities like Bethesda to create successful alternatives in spite of all the resources they have.

The blowback that multiple companies have gotten for choosing to release games as Epic Game Store exclusives and Discord becoming gradually ubiquitous are what I would consider examples of this phenomenon. Average people simply want to use the larger, better platforms, and they aren't convinced to move when alternatives exist.

Because of the sheer size of platforms like these, success might just be defined in terms of momentum and ubiquity by now. You would be up against convincing a subset of millions and millions of people that you can deliver a functionally superior platform, and if their friends decide not to move, then they would have good reason not to move also. Developer cuts tend to be criticized, but I would think that most users of Steam wouldn't even be aware of such issues since they stay local to the development side and don't impact their experience, and so they keep using Steam anyway.

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

#239

Post by iyasu »

oAlbe wrote: post #231
throwaway09223 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of highly technical, highly capable game studios. Bethesda isn't one of them. Most game studios produce poorly optimized junk and are barely managing to ship a working product.

> There are a couple of highly technical, highly capable game studios. Which ones are those?

From the people I've talked to, Epic Games and Riot developers seem to have their shit together as far as being able to scale their backends to millions of players. Improbable too (although they're more of a game services studio), who are the creators of Thanos*

* https://www.improbable.io/blog/thanos-prometheus-at-scale)

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

#240

Post by philistine »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #203
KiranRao0 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unverified Rumor, so a healthy grain of salt is required: A friend at a large GPU maker was mentioning that a lot of "squeezing all possible compute abilities" for games are in the driver, rather than in the game itself. Which is why you'll often see significant performance improvements with driver updates after a game has launched. It makes sense as it's in the GPU makers' best interest to have the maximum performan…

My old boss worked on the PC port of Dead Space 3. He actually did spend significant effort optimising his shaders to get good performance on PC, but an Nvidia driver update would silently replace some of his code with hardware-optimised shaders they'd written themselves (similar to how Windows 95 had a hard-coded fix for Sim City). This was never advertised publicly, and the only reason he found out was because he d…

Can you say more about the hardcoded fix for Sim City? This sounds fascinating.
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