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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

#261

Post by keithnz »

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…

Microsofts xbox app and gamepass is rapidly rising, it takes the next step, pay like you pay for netflix, get a bunch of modern popular games. I haven't really bought anything on steam for a while, mostly because I have a stack of games on gamepass I want to play but really there is more than I have time for.

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

#262

Post by ziml77 »

philistine wrote: post #246
paulryanrogers wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can buy games with confidence and know they will run - even if school requires a Mac next year or the only machine around is Dad's Linux laptop. This hasn't been my experience. Plenty of Steam games have fallen by the wayside as operating systems evolve. GOG is slipping in this regard as well, but began as a way to buy and run older games. It also provides some nice pressure for Steam and its publishers to compet…

> Then there is Mac dropping 32 bit support, to which Steam seems to have thrown up their hands. Steam's copy on a 32-bit title is much better than GOG. It's big, it's in red, it's clear that this title is limited because its 32-bit. On GOG, you have a small line of text at the bottom of the Mac system requirements. That's way too small a warning (try to find it on this page: https://www.gog.com/game/darwinia )!

It's not just small, it's actually contradictory! It says minimum macOS version is 10.15 but then says that the game is 32-bit so it won't run on macOS 10.15 or higher.

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

#263

Post by [deleted] »

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

#264

Post by poink »

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…

They bootstrapped Steam by forcing it on CS players, and many of us oldschool players boycotted it by playing on old servers for months. I was probably one of the last of those to give in and install Steam because I feared what would happen if they were successful. They were successful beyond anything I thought possible at the time, yet they've justified none of my fears.

It's probably wishful thinking, but I like to think Steam is such a force because Valve have earned and kept the trust of many (initially very skeptical) gamers over the course of _decades_ at this point. I'd rewind the clock to the Before Steam times if I could, but short of that--if I have to pick my poison and choose _some_ platform--it's Steam with zero hesitation.

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

#265

Post by AussieWog93 »

alxexperience wrote: post #245
philistine wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

EDIT: Was rushing, but updated with the exact quote here so people don't need to go digging :) I believe this is the story OP mentioned [1]. > Windows 95? No problem. Nice new 32 bit API, but it still ran old 16 bit software perfectly. Microsoft obsessed about this, spending a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows…

Yep, that's exactly what I was referencing in GP!

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

#266

Post by bastawhiz »

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.

One might say the same about the AWS management console.

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

#267

Post by Semaphor »

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…

One huge difference people often forget: Steam gives you (essentially) unlimited keys to sell elsewhere. Steam still pays for the infrastructure and everything, but they get a 0% cut because someone bought the game on GreenManGaming and then added that key to steam.

Just imagine, alternative app stores, you keep almost all the convenience of the apple one, for free.

You can also give keys away, but if you do that too much, they do apparently limit you ;)

Another thing: The store app is not a disaster. Compare it with Windows, Epic… Those are all horrible apps that mostly behave like browsers, but then differ in some ways (in addition to the often bad performance). Hell, for a long time, the back button did not work in the Epic store. Steam managed to have their store not be a disaster pretty much since its existence.

And Windows/Epic are not even the worst examples. I remember when Origin started, they had no language setting and forced you into whatever GeoIP decided. I don’t even remember what my issue with UPlay was, but the experience was bad enough that I would never again play a game that uses it.

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

#268

Post by bastawhiz »

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…

> Microsoft is throwing the towel and bowing to Steam's cartelish 30%

I would be quite surprised to hear that Microsoft didn't cut some sort of Very Good Deal with Valve.

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

#269

Post by ywain »

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.

Yep! In fact, a few years ago Blizzard tried to sunset the Battle.net brand and rename the launcher to just Blizzard Launcher or something, and they eventually gave up on that because the community was really attached to the Battle.net name. For many gamers Battle.net was one of the first online experiences.
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