Finally, so much people will join, that I’m sure someone will fix the Proton bug where the mouse pointer loses focus and you have to tab out and back in to regain focus after respawning. Hell, there are so many heroes that don’t require precise aiming, that it would even make it a playable game on the Steam Deck.
I really wish Steam would put their foot down and stop these launchers. They are nothing but a nuisance and add no value for the customer.
EDIT: Just to be clear, when EA Play joined Gamepass there wasn’t a separate launcher when you went to play an EA game on the Xbox. Steam could make this work with them and the other companies. They have enough pull to make this work - it would be greatly welcomed.
I just wish the competition gave any attention to Linux support. GOG Galaxy has been out idk how long, they sell Linux games, and still not even a launcher.
Having a monopoly is not good… I just wish others wouldn’t completely ignore Linux users… Valve/Steam on the other hand is seriously pushing it forward which makes me very much biased toward them.
Yeah. While them having the most successful platform for distributing games can be troublesome in the monopoly sense, I’m still sunny to them just because of their support for the Linux community.
Competition is good, even if the other launchers are a bit annoying.
What does “competition” between companies really mean? It means they are competing for customers. Annoying me with shitty launchers is the opposite of competing. Make things cheaper, offer better services and more features. This is competition. Steam (and GOG) is the only one actually “competing” here. And look what happened? Microsoft, Ubisoft, Blizzard… one by one they fall to Steam because they simply cannot comprehend this fact.
So let them distribute their launchers and storefronts, Valve couldn’t stop it. But it’s not monopolistic for Steam to say “if you want us to approve your product for our store, you can’t have the game launch into a pop-up for someone else’s store”.
At least Valve isn’t a public company and beholden to shitty investor politics though, so I am more okay with Steam than… literally any other game launcher.
Plus they’re the only launcher that fully supports Linux, so until that changes I am rooting for Steam.
This isn’t a monopoly issue. Other launchers exist. Most of the games on Steam are available on these other launcher, yet people still prefer Steam.
I can only speak for myself, but I prefer Steam because it’s more customizable so I can set it to open to my library first instead of a rotating ad banner, the storefront ads are not intrusive and can be easily ignored, and steams remote play is something that no other launcher offers.
In fact, I am not sure what the other launchers offer that they excel at over Steam.
Yeah but like, launcher isn’t a market. Game Store is the market they’re in. I’ll happily buy a game from a different store if thats the only place it’s offered or even if it’s just cheaper there. The annoyance is when they want to be Steam. I don’t want to be forced to download another launcher to play a game. If you want what Steam has, create a launcher that offers better services than Steam.
But most games aren’t DRM-free, so the launchers are necessary to verify your account and ownership of the game. Otherwise every store would be GOG, and most publishers won’t use it.
Launchers are a solution to DRM, not the solution. The way today’s modern market is, it’s understandable that some gamers have forgotten that there used to be games you bought directly from the publisher’s website. DRM was done by asking you to sign into your account before launching the game, a lot of games still make you do this today. There’s also the tried and true method of phoning home with a product key for DRM as well. There’s no shortage of ways to be independent, very few companies are interested in doing so because Steam is convenient.
Aside from the fact that logging into every game separately would be a nightmare, it would only work for online games and be a major hassle for developers because it means they also need to compensate for not having a launcher on things like automatic updates and deployments. It’s not really a solution either side would like.
I’m getting downvoted hard but people are forgetting that a game store not having a launcher is suicide. GOG tried that, started bleeding money, caved in and made their own launcher. Steam also has 20 years under their belt so saying worse launchers shouldn’t be allowed to exist would just kill competition entirely.
What are you even talking about? It’s an application that launches a game. It adds nothing of value to the process of opening the game. How is it less of a monopoly to use a launcher to launch a launcher to launch a game?
It’s not just a launcher, it’s a storefront. Uplay, EA-whatever, and Rockstar Launcher are all storefronts where you can buy the games those companies make.
The launcher itself is a UI which lets you “launch” the game. Steam for example, is a launcher and a storefront, as is Uplay.
Having all your games in a single launcher/storefront is bad, as it gives a single company entire control over your games, and monopoly pricing.
Also remember that Steam takes a 30% cut, which is totally unnecessary, and is what directly caused giants like Ubisoft and Rockstar to make their own storefronts. Because why pay a 30% tax just for selling your game, this ain’t the 1990s anymore with CD-ROM pressings.
Fuck Steam and it’s monopolistic, 30% rent seeking bollocks.
That’s an argument for Steam not being the only game store, it doesn’t make much sense after you already bought it from Steam and the game requires an alternate launcher to be installed.
But on that other matter, I think you have a point in theory, but EA, Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard don’t seem to have any interest in providing a better service or unique benefits. Steam’s dominance is overly maligned when it’s the only one where the company actually earned its place, by providing a better service.
And even then Steam doesn’t even have as much of a monopoly over PC games as console manufacturers actually do over each of their platforms. But since it is by design that consoles only support the platform-maker approved games, it doesn’t even register in people’s minds as a monopoly. As if they were never supposed to control these devices they have bought.
Blizzard had plans to dump the launcher shortly after D3 2.0 dropped. Then they backpedaled and where like no wait launcher is great! 🤷♂️
“Players on Steam will still have to connect Overwatch 2 to a Battle.net account, but they’ll have access to all of Steam’s amenities like their friends list and achievements.”
But that’s the point…? Pretty much every economic or political system “works” In theory. Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Dictatorship. What goes wrong is always the people.
Therefore, one should aim for a system where people have the least possible ways to screw everything up (not that I have a suggestion, sadly)
It wouldnt be so notable if they just let me download the game by itself. If I have to download a fucking launcher every time then I want the games to be centralized atleast somewhat.
Seriously every fucking conpany a fucking launcher for a while there, even fucking bethesda had one.
I’m permanently annoyed with the launcher thing, too. I wish someone would come up with a software store app that 1) installed all the right crap so the game works right and 2) didn’t require you to open the app to open the game. Steam, for example, lets you install the game with a start menu shortcut, but if you don’t have Steam open, clicking on the start menu shortcut opens Steam first, then Steam launches the friggin’ game. Then there is the Bethesda launcher. Then Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher. There’s an Xbox launcher. Yadda yadda. I don’t know if their primary goal is monopoly as much as it is forcing you to open a program with a store in it so you see stuff to buy when you want to play a game. I think having a monopoly is secondary. Primary to them is forcing you to see that they have more shit for you to buy. I’m pretty sure Apple’s iTunes is the one that started it all. Let’s integrate shopping for music into the computer. Then, the phone. Now it’s not just music. It’s every friggin’ thing. People with shopping addictions must have a hard time if they’re also gamers or fans of other digital media.
I think you can choose your library as the startscreen when steam opens.
But I think you are right that the game should open without starting steam. I would guess it has something to do with DRM? because with GOG you can just download the game and start it from desktop without launcher.
Yes, your library can be the start screen when it opens. But first you must see the other window (that I always close without reading) telling you about today’s “special deal” or some game you might like to buy.
I feel like a game being made available on an additional platform is like the opposite of monopoly. If steam paid Blizzard for exclusive storefront rights and you could only get the games on PC from Steam id be inclined to agree.
Valve has like five games, and the hundreds of thousands of other games on Steam are from other companies, and they’ve had 3rd-party games since 2005.
Activision/Blizzard didn’t put their games on Steam so they can push their own store, it was to not make payments to a third party, and have high visibility of their own products (e.g. advertise CoD to Diablo players and vice versa). Of course, they miss out on the visibility of being on the largest game marketplace.
Correction: Activision)blizzard COULDN’T put their game on steam with their own store because of steams monopolistic TOS: which is what they got sued over.
EA have their games on Steam and Origin and have for years, Blizzard could (and will) have their games on Steam and Battle.NET. I’ve seen nothing to suggested they were unable to put their games on Steam, but rather decided it wasn’t in their interest, given Steam’s TOS and/or what they could gain from having their own marketplace.
Steam is being sued by Wolfire for antitrust, but there is no outcome in this suit yet. Unless you’re referring to a different suit I don’t know about.
Even if Valve loses this lawsuit, it doesn’t meant they have to allow any specific products from other companies on Steam. It just might mean a reduction in fees, or an inability to sign exclusivity deals (which are common across the industry, weather you like them or not, and I know I don’t).
The Wolfire antitrust lawsuit is because they sell other companies games on Steam, to the point that they dominate the marketplace, not because they were stopping other companies from selling games on Steam.
I doubt anyone will complain if Blizzard’s games are brought to other storefronts too.
I like Steam. Steam has the best features, best UI, good sales, and while they are not without faults (systems can stay unchanged for a long time!), they are run by a company that by and large respects its userbase.
I don’t mind if games are brought to Steam and any or all other storefronts. Put it on GOG, Windows Store, EGS, Itch.io, battlenet, Origin, Uplay… You name it, I approve of it going there also. If those other storefronts want me to use them, they need to provide a comparable or superior experience. GOG comes the closest, but its inability to get games in a timely or predictable manner, if at all, is too much of an obstacle for me.
I find it infinitely more usable than all of the other storefronts I’ve used or seen. Interacting with my library is easy and straight forward. Buying games is easy and straight forward. When it opens I’m not inundated with ads for games I don’t care about, or ads at all.
Showing you games that are available on the store isn’t an “ad”. This mentality needs to go away. If you walk into a store, everything on the shelves isn’t an “ad”, it’s a product.
Steam is the best platform by far, and the only one with Linux support. It’s not Valve’s fault if other publishers aren’t even trying to make a good product.
I really hope that when Microsoft buys Activision that they bring back Overwatch 1 and put it on Steam. I played OW1 pretty constantly for over 3 years and was having fun with it until the day they shut it down. I played OW2 for less than two weeks and haven’t touched it since release. I can respect that some people prefer OW2, but for me it’s not even close.
Considering how poorly their dev’s have been since Activision-Blizztard went woke (around when Vanguard came out) it’s no surprise they are trying to maximize their market. Back when WoW was the undisputed champion of all things MMO’s they never would have considered doing this.
Diablo 4 is garbage, they literally destroyed the concept of seasons that was what kept people playing Diablo 3 for so long.
I’m actually kind of surprised that they aren’t showing up on the Microshaft store first.
Reading the comments I tend to think that people are so unfamiliar with competition that they fail to recognize it when seeing it at work: if you have competition, stuff fails and dies.
This idea that everything should survive and that I as the user should be the receptacle of thousands of shitty products preaching variety as an excuse for their existence is insane.
Launchers existed, could have used IP as an advantage to develop a valid product instead failed and therefore will disappear.
I still use GOG Galaxy no problem alongside Steam.
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Link to original news source on Blizzard.com https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23982127/overwatch-2-coming-to-steam-on-august-10
Link to the Steam Page https://store.steampowered.com/app/2357570/Overwatch_2/
Finally, so much people will join, that I’m sure someone will fix the Proton bug where the mouse pointer loses focus and you have to tab out and back in to regain focus after respawning. Hell, there are so many heroes that don’t require precise aiming, that it would even make it a playable game on the Steam Deck.
It has been fixed in protonGE
Does valve ever merge commits from PGE ?
You still have to use Battle.net, so that’s an absolute no-go from me.
Glad they’re giving folks options though.
You need a battlenet login, but not the launcher
Doesn’t the launcher also double as their anti cheat system? I thought the launcher also managed Warden
Warden works on Battle.net the server not the launcher. Very few games have Warden.
I don’t think so, but also I thought most of ow2 anticheat was serverside
I really wish Steam would put their foot down and stop these launchers. They are nothing but a nuisance and add no value for the customer.
EDIT: Just to be clear, when EA Play joined Gamepass there wasn’t a separate launcher when you went to play an EA game on the Xbox. Steam could make this work with them and the other companies. They have enough pull to make this work - it would be greatly welcomed.
Steam having a monopoly is not a good thing for anyone. Competition is good, even if the other launchers are a bit annoying.
How is a shiti launcher a competition…
You want competition go to GoG or Epic… Or pirate
Yeah, steam is good, but it can get bad if they sit around for too long and get fat. The threat of others is a good thing.
I just wish the competition gave any attention to Linux support. GOG Galaxy has been out idk how long, they sell Linux games, and still not even a launcher.
False. It’s a good thing for Gabe.
Steam has competition by way of Epic, EA, Blizzard. Steam is just the far superior product and people don’t want to change
Having a monopoly is not good… I just wish others wouldn’t completely ignore Linux users… Valve/Steam on the other hand is seriously pushing it forward which makes me very much biased toward them.
Yeah. While them having the most successful platform for distributing games can be troublesome in the monopoly sense, I’m still sunny to them just because of their support for the Linux community.
What does “competition” between companies really mean? It means they are competing for customers. Annoying me with shitty launchers is the opposite of competing. Make things cheaper, offer better services and more features. This is competition. Steam (and GOG) is the only one actually “competing” here. And look what happened? Microsoft, Ubisoft, Blizzard… one by one they fall to Steam because they simply cannot comprehend this fact.
So let them distribute their launchers and storefronts, Valve couldn’t stop it. But it’s not monopolistic for Steam to say “if you want us to approve your product for our store, you can’t have the game launch into a pop-up for someone else’s store”.
At least Valve isn’t a public company and beholden to shitty investor politics though, so I am more okay with Steam than… literally any other game launcher.
Plus they’re the only launcher that fully supports Linux, so until that changes I am rooting for Steam.
This isn’t a monopoly issue. Other launchers exist. Most of the games on Steam are available on these other launcher, yet people still prefer Steam.
I can only speak for myself, but I prefer Steam because it’s more customizable so I can set it to open to my library first instead of a rotating ad banner, the storefront ads are not intrusive and can be easily ignored, and steams remote play is something that no other launcher offers.
In fact, I am not sure what the other launchers offer that they excel at over Steam.
i love how polarizing the votes on this are, you aren’t wrong. gog is a huge competitor but they have their own launcher too which is annoying
Yeah but like, launcher isn’t a market. Game Store is the market they’re in. I’ll happily buy a game from a different store if thats the only place it’s offered or even if it’s just cheaper there. The annoyance is when they want to be Steam. I don’t want to be forced to download another launcher to play a game. If you want what Steam has, create a launcher that offers better services than Steam.
But most games aren’t DRM-free, so the launchers are necessary to verify your account and ownership of the game. Otherwise every store would be GOG, and most publishers won’t use it.
Launchers are a solution to DRM, not the solution. The way today’s modern market is, it’s understandable that some gamers have forgotten that there used to be games you bought directly from the publisher’s website. DRM was done by asking you to sign into your account before launching the game, a lot of games still make you do this today. There’s also the tried and true method of phoning home with a product key for DRM as well. There’s no shortage of ways to be independent, very few companies are interested in doing so because Steam is convenient.
Aside from the fact that logging into every game separately would be a nightmare, it would only work for online games and be a major hassle for developers because it means they also need to compensate for not having a launcher on things like automatic updates and deployments. It’s not really a solution either side would like.
I’m getting downvoted hard but people are forgetting that a game store not having a launcher is suicide. GOG tried that, started bleeding money, caved in and made their own launcher. Steam also has 20 years under their belt so saying worse launchers shouldn’t be allowed to exist would just kill competition entirely.
Steam already does that verification.
Yeah, but why should Steam be the only game in town? That’s a very dangerous monopoly.
What are you even talking about? It’s an application that launches a game. It adds nothing of value to the process of opening the game. How is it less of a monopoly to use a launcher to launch a launcher to launch a game?
It’s not just a launcher, it’s a storefront. Uplay, EA-whatever, and Rockstar Launcher are all storefronts where you can buy the games those companies make.
The launcher itself is a UI which lets you “launch” the game. Steam for example, is a launcher and a storefront, as is Uplay.
Having all your games in a single launcher/storefront is bad, as it gives a single company entire control over your games, and monopoly pricing.
Also remember that Steam takes a 30% cut, which is totally unnecessary, and is what directly caused giants like Ubisoft and Rockstar to make their own storefronts. Because why pay a 30% tax just for selling your game, this ain’t the 1990s anymore with CD-ROM pressings.
Fuck Steam and it’s monopolistic, 30% rent seeking bollocks.
There’s plenty of others. GoG and Humble come to mind as the major alternatives.
Yeah, and GoG is fantastic and I’m so glad it exists. We need more DRM-free storefronts without launchers for sure.
That’s an argument for Steam not being the only game store, it doesn’t make much sense after you already bought it from Steam and the game requires an alternate launcher to be installed.
But on that other matter, I think you have a point in theory, but EA, Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard don’t seem to have any interest in providing a better service or unique benefits. Steam’s dominance is overly maligned when it’s the only one where the company actually earned its place, by providing a better service.
And even then Steam doesn’t even have as much of a monopoly over PC games as console manufacturers actually do over each of their platforms. But since it is by design that consoles only support the platform-maker approved games, it doesn’t even register in people’s minds as a monopoly. As if they were never supposed to control these devices they have bought.
GOG and Humble are really good stores though
Gog is reportedly failing and Humble’s success is because they’re selling Steam keys, so they still depend on them.
According to the steam page it says it only requires a battle.net account. Usually it says when another launcher is required.
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Blizzard had plans to dump the launcher shortly after D3 2.0 dropped. Then they backpedaled and where like no wait launcher is great! 🤷♂️
“Players on Steam will still have to connect Overwatch 2 to a Battle.net account, but they’ll have access to all of Steam’s amenities like their friends list and achievements.”
Lol. Okay then.
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It’s surprising because it’s Blizzard
People love a monopoly when it suits them
Indeed! Monopolies are great. Why have five stores when you can have a one-stop-shop?
It is the capitalism that is wrong.
Just stop already with the “capitalism bad” shit. The only negative thing about Lemmy so far. In all systems its the people who ruin it. End of story.
But that’s the point…? Pretty much every economic or political system “works” In theory. Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Dictatorship. What goes wrong is always the people.
Therefore, one should aim for a system where people have the least possible ways to screw everything up (not that I have a suggestion, sadly)
You could stop at five or six stores… or just one.
It wouldnt be so notable if they just let me download the game by itself. If I have to download a fucking launcher every time then I want the games to be centralized atleast somewhat.
Seriously every fucking conpany a fucking launcher for a while there, even fucking bethesda had one.
I’m permanently annoyed with the launcher thing, too. I wish someone would come up with a software store app that 1) installed all the right crap so the game works right and 2) didn’t require you to open the app to open the game. Steam, for example, lets you install the game with a start menu shortcut, but if you don’t have Steam open, clicking on the start menu shortcut opens Steam first, then Steam launches the friggin’ game. Then there is the Bethesda launcher. Then Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher. There’s an Xbox launcher. Yadda yadda. I don’t know if their primary goal is monopoly as much as it is forcing you to open a program with a store in it so you see stuff to buy when you want to play a game. I think having a monopoly is secondary. Primary to them is forcing you to see that they have more shit for you to buy. I’m pretty sure Apple’s iTunes is the one that started it all. Let’s integrate shopping for music into the computer. Then, the phone. Now it’s not just music. It’s every friggin’ thing. People with shopping addictions must have a hard time if they’re also gamers or fans of other digital media.
I think you can choose your library as the startscreen when steam opens.
But I think you are right that the game should open without starting steam. I would guess it has something to do with DRM? because with GOG you can just download the game and start it from desktop without launcher.
Yes, your library can be the start screen when it opens. But first you must see the other window (that I always close without reading) telling you about today’s “special deal” or some game you might like to buy.
I’m ambivalent on console exclusives for this reason. It certainly drives sales for a console, but it’s so anti consumer
I feel like a game being made available on an additional platform is like the opposite of monopoly. If steam paid Blizzard for exclusive storefront rights and you could only get the games on PC from Steam id be inclined to agree.
People love things that benefit them as consumers and hate things that don’t, end of
Apparently Steam is being sued for being a monopoly and abusing it, which is probably why they have to allow other companies games now.
Valve has like five games, and the hundreds of thousands of other games on Steam are from other companies, and they’ve had 3rd-party games since 2005.
Activision/Blizzard didn’t put their games on Steam so they can push their own store, it was to not make payments to a third party, and have high visibility of their own products (e.g. advertise CoD to Diablo players and vice versa). Of course, they miss out on the visibility of being on the largest game marketplace.
Correction: Activision)blizzard COULDN’T put their game on steam with their own store because of steams monopolistic TOS: which is what they got sued over.
EA have their games on Steam and Origin and have for years, Blizzard could (and will) have their games on Steam and Battle.NET. I’ve seen nothing to suggested they were unable to put their games on Steam, but rather decided it wasn’t in their interest, given Steam’s TOS and/or what they could gain from having their own marketplace.
Steam is being sued by Wolfire for antitrust, but there is no outcome in this suit yet. Unless you’re referring to a different suit I don’t know about.
Even if Valve loses this lawsuit, it doesn’t meant they have to allow any specific products from other companies on Steam. It just might mean a reduction in fees, or an inability to sign exclusivity deals (which are common across the industry, weather you like them or not, and I know I don’t). The Wolfire antitrust lawsuit is because they sell other companies games on Steam, to the point that they dominate the marketplace, not because they were stopping other companies from selling games on Steam.
I doubt anyone will complain if Blizzard’s games are brought to other storefronts too.
I like Steam. Steam has the best features, best UI, good sales, and while they are not without faults (systems can stay unchanged for a long time!), they are run by a company that by and large respects its userbase.
I don’t mind if games are brought to Steam and any or all other storefronts. Put it on GOG, Windows Store, EGS, Itch.io, battlenet, Origin, Uplay… You name it, I approve of it going there also. If those other storefronts want me to use them, they need to provide a comparable or superior experience. GOG comes the closest, but its inability to get games in a timely or predictable manner, if at all, is too much of an obstacle for me.
Steam has one of the worst UIs I’ve ever seen lol. It looks and feels like a website from the early 2000s.
I find it infinitely more usable than all of the other storefronts I’ve used or seen. Interacting with my library is easy and straight forward. Buying games is easy and straight forward. When it opens I’m not inundated with ads for games I don’t care about, or ads at all.
Showing you games that are available on the store isn’t an “ad”. This mentality needs to go away. If you walk into a store, everything on the shelves isn’t an “ad”, it’s a product.
Functionality over form. This ain’t Apple
Steam is the best platform by far, and the only one with Linux support. It’s not Valve’s fault if other publishers aren’t even trying to make a good product.
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“Steam should be the only game launcher I use”
I really hope that when Microsoft buys Activision that they bring back Overwatch 1 and put it on Steam. I played OW1 pretty constantly for over 3 years and was having fun with it until the day they shut it down. I played OW2 for less than two weeks and haven’t touched it since release. I can respect that some people prefer OW2, but for me it’s not even close.
Not happening.
Gimme steam support for D4 so I can get full compatibility on my steamdeck
Lol the desperation of a flailing bad company. Sorry Blizzard, winter is over.
Hope, that sc2 would achieve some online from this move
If they can do GOG I’ll pick up their games, steam is ok but really I want to own my games and only GOG does that.
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Great news!
Considering how poorly their dev’s have been since Activision-Blizztard went woke (around when Vanguard came out) it’s no surprise they are trying to maximize their market. Back when WoW was the undisputed champion of all things MMO’s they never would have considered doing this.
Diablo 4 is garbage, they literally destroyed the concept of seasons that was what kept people playing Diablo 3 for so long.
I’m actually kind of surprised that they aren’t showing up on the Microshaft store first.
I don’t understand what the word woke is supposed to mean here…
Reading the comments I tend to think that people are so unfamiliar with competition that they fail to recognize it when seeing it at work: if you have competition, stuff fails and dies. This idea that everything should survive and that I as the user should be the receptacle of thousands of shitty products preaching variety as an excuse for their existence is insane. Launchers existed, could have used IP as an advantage to develop a valid product instead failed and therefore will disappear. I still use GOG Galaxy no problem alongside Steam.