Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by squeaky-clean » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:07 AM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #230

samtheprogram wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>>The reason Steam and Netflix are so good and continue to exist in such a good state is exactly because of the competition. I don't believe in this case that is demonstrably true. What has improved for me as a consumer with either platform since competition came - other then less content? In particular with Steam, I don't believe there has been a single improvement relevant to me. Uplay, ea origin, battle.net are pu…

Steam's refund policy used to be abysmal until Origin added no-hassle refunds. Within about 6 months Steam changed to the policy they have now.

Big Picture Mode only came about because they tried developing Steam Machines to compete with Microsoft potentially locking everything into the app store.

I don't think UPlay and Battle.net have caused any changes though, lol. Their only attempts at competition have been game exclusivity.

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

#252

Post by mmastrac » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:07 AM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #244

weaksauce wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's funny is the original CS:GO gui was built using flash.

For anyone interested, they used Scaleform which is a middleware a lot of games would use to have flash-based UI. It's technically a discontinued product but even Hitman 3 last year used it. As crappy as Flash is for security, it was such a good tool for interactive animations. Here's a list of games that used Scaleform, though it often isn't used as the only UI system. Sometimes it's just main menus or world-space U…

When I was doing work for Nickelodeon around the iPad 1 days, we just could not get around the fact that flash was an amazing tool for animation and anything else we used would have tradeoffs. Tech-wise, a poor product. As a tool for design-minded people? Unmatched.

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

#253

Post by egypturnash » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #161

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.

It never fails to amuse me when I am playing some sprawling open world tasklist from Ubisoft and something happens that diverts me into the weird world of achievements kept on Uplay. All this highly-optimized 3D work and lovingly-polished 2D menus is suddenly covered up by a collection of React placeholder items doing their "loading data of unknown size" pulse animation at an erratic 3-10fps.

I imagine that it is implemented and maintained entirely by people who are biding their time waiting for an opening on a team where they get to do something they give half a damn about, because it is pretty clear that nobody has put any love into this stuff.

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

#254

Post by faeriechangling » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

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…

People understand that Microsoft Games Pass and Epic Games Store are only a good deal because they NEED to undercut Valve to compete with Valve. Yet if they were in a position of power, how much do people trust Tencent or Microsoft to not use their vertical integration to monopolize the market and extract higher rents than Valve ever did? Why does Apple deserve any credit for building a store you were FORCED to use with asinine submission policies? How much can publicly held companies be trusted to value long term customer loyalty over short term profits?

Valve is just simply the only company you CAN trust, and that's their massive competitive advantage and something Microsoft and Apple and Google with their trillions of dollars can't buy. When they make a decision that makes people upset, the CEO will directly talk with customers on sites like Reddit. They've been a force against the imposition of heavyweight DRM. They've voluntarily introduced liberal policies like family sharing and offline play that other companies refused to implement. Valve is an honest company in an industry full of conmen operating at a loss.

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

#255

Post by lifeformed » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

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…

It's frustrating how no other launchers have even a fraction is the useful features Steam has. How come I can't buy games as gifts for my friends on other stores??? It's free money and network effects and a very easy implementation. Steam is winning because nobody is even trying. The only other good one is itch.io, but you won't find AAA games on it of course.

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

#256

Post by _carbyau_ » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC

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…

Disney triggered

I use Netflix and Disney. They are mostly pretty equivalent functionality with different shows. But Disney+ seems to be a faceslappingly appalling waste of large Disney franchises.

Mostly I am screaming for canon watchlists. Whether it is in release order, or universe-timeline order, or "makes most sense watched this way" order. Or all of them as options.

So many friggin' Marvel movies and TV shows and yet I have to google some random page to find the order I should watch them in?!?

Same for Star Wars!

Come on Disney, kids keep growing through teenagerdom into adulthood all the time. Why not make it easy to hook them to watch your stuff?

end rant

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

#257

Post by netheril96 » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:24 AM UTC

iyasu wrote: post #239

oAlbe wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 )

> Riot developers

The League of Legends client (which launches the actual game) is awful too. I don’t understand how it continuously burn 20% of CPU when doing nothing.

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

#258

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:26 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#259

Post by the_snooze » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

_carbyau_ wrote: post #256

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…

Disney triggered I use Netflix and Disney. They are mostly pretty equivalent functionality with different shows. But Disney+ seems to be a faceslappingly appalling waste of large Disney franchises. Mostly I am screaming for canon watchlists. Whether it is in release order, or universe-timeline order, or "makes most sense watched this way" order. Or all of them as options. So many friggin' Marvel movies and TV shows a…

>So many friggin' Marvel movies and TV shows and yet I have to google some random page to find the order I should watch them in?!?

It's definitely there for the Marvel movies. I'm watching them in release order. If you go to the Marvel screen on Disney Plus, you'll see lists for "Cinematic Universe Phase One," "Cinematic Universe Phase Two," etc. They also have one for timeline order.

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

#260

Post by ziml77 » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:40 AM UTC

KiranRao0 wrote: post #189

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.

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…

The reason that you see drivers release with specific games mentioned is exactly because of this. And also why the driver installer packages are so large. What I can't say is how much of a difference the GPU manufacturers work makes on average. I would have to assume there's a reasonable bump otherwise it wouldn't be worth it.