Why do you need a launcher? (asking older gamers actually)

[zecg@lemmy.world]

Not having a launcher is my requirement to buy a game lol

Good luck with that. I need it because I've fiddled with my screwdriver adjusting the cassette head position to load Scuba Diver on ZX Spectrum too many times.

[burgerbaron@piefed.social]

I don't. I was still buying physical releases and renting games from my local video stores until both things died out against my will.

Steam is convienent for the services they provide.

Since the USA is turning to shit, I try to buy from stores outside USA now so GOG is increasingly seeing more of my money. Let's say Valve falls off or goes to shit after Gabe dies: I'm a skilled pirate so whatever.

Mostly I'm Ambivalent but kinda apathetic about launchers because I can just go and find whatever I potentially lose again elsewhere. A self educated privilege combined with grey morality I suppose. Or a resignation to an ever worsening reality I was born into without my say.

[zerofk@lemmy.zip]

You don’t. When Valve first started with Steam, everybody hated it. I myself held out for a long time, not wanting a useless program hogging resources.

But gradually it became clear that Steam was actually just a game store. Except having to go to a store and rifle through boxes, you could do it from your PC. Yes it launched the games, but that was just like having a single folder with all game shortcuts. Its main purpose was discovering and buying new games.

Other vendors saw its success and wanted a piece of the cake. I think they mistakenly thought the launcher was an important part of Steam’s success, when it was in fact the large catalogue and good discoverability. They use exclusivity to lure customers, but can’t possibly compete with Valve.

Now we are at a point where the landscape is divided again. The majority of games is on Steam, but enough have their own place that the “single folder with shortcuts” became relevant again. That’s where the likes of Heroic and Playnite come in. These are no longer stores to buy games, but are simply a convenient way to quickly start the game you want, regardless of its source.

[jackbydev@programming.dev]

It's really easy to forget, but yes, Steam was annoying back in the day. I hated it so much I bought Borderlands 1 from somewhere else in protest. My friends bought it through Steam. The patch dropped and they got it, I didn't, and I couldn't play anymore. It finally came later, though. This pushed me to give it a second chance. Now it's amazing. Apart from some gripes about the UI of Steam itself, there's not really much to complain about.

[tburkhol@lemmy.world]

Nothing from GoG requires their launcher.

[zecg@lemmy.world]

That's true, but it's also a pain in the ass compared to Steam, was my point. I can click on Dishonored and have it ready in 15 minutes while I make coffee, or I can download like

    Dishonored - Definitive Edition (Part 1 of 5) 2 MB
    Dishonored - Definitive Edition (Part 2 of 5) 4 GB
    Dishonored - Definitive Edition (Part 3 of 5) 4 GB
    Dishonored - Definitive Edition (Part 4 of 5) 4 GB
    Dishonored - Definitive Edition (Part 5 of 5) 2.4 GB 

and then install it by hand, after which I have double its size in used diskspace and have to delete those files. Also, there may be patches to install. People don't realize this, but Steam doesn't actually necessarily mean imply DRM. I 'member the time before Ubishit launcher when you could just take a Steam install of Rayman Origins and plop the directory from steam's common files onto another computer.

[katana314@lemmy.world]

On Linux, running an exe isn’t often as simple as “wine frog-fracker.exe”. It’s usually “proton PREFIX=~/steam-proton-10/ TRICKS=b DXIMPL=1.7.8 blah blah … frog-fracker.exe”

As a result, Linux gamers tend to have launchers even for hobby games they downloaded. Arcade launchers for emulated games are especially common now.

[blaiz0r@lemmy.ml]

I never liked Steam when it was first released, it was problematic, slowed down my machine and caused me frustration.

Now it's different. I agree with Gene Newell that piracy is a service issue, I haven't pirated any games since steam started to fill its library with other non Valve games that I wanted.

I also appreciate the additional features that it brings like the community features and guides and managing updates for me.

It's not perfect, nothing is, buy I prefer it to managing my own files and updates.

[blaiz0r@lemmy.ml]

GoG does have DRM games now, check out Hitman.

Also Steam has plenty of non DRM games, like Witcher 3 for example

[ampersandrew@lemmy.world]

Hitman was quickly pulled from GOG for being too big of a compromise on their values. Their only exception to DRM-free is multiplayer that uses GOG Galaxy services.

[lightnsfw@reddthat.com]

The biggest thing is the updates. If the game can update itself or is no longer getting updates I don't care about it having a launcher. If I have to go to their website and download a new .exe every time they do an update it is annoying. Steam does provide a lot of other QOL features as well though.

[ampersandrew@lemmy.world]

They might be the biggest dogs in the industry, but there are so, so many games out there that aren't like that every year.

[wolflink@sh.itjust.works]

I too prefer to buy from GoG, but I often add my GoG games to be launched through Steam as non-Steam games so I can take advantage of features like Proton and Steam Input.

If I want to take advantage of certain features Steam only offers to games you buy through them, I will buy through Steam instead of GoG. Usually when I do this it’s for multiplayer or save file syncing reasons.

Steam features you can use with non-Steam games:

• provides SteamInput which allows me to use any game controller in any game with a lot of configuration options. It’s the best tool for that purpose I’ve ever seen.
• provides Proton for playing Windows games on Linux (and I do 99% of my gaming on Linux these days)
• provides VR headset drivers and tools for using different VR headsets with games not designed for them
• provides a TV and controller optimized interface (“Big Picture” mode)

Steam features exclusive to Steam games:

• updates games automatically
• backs up my saves and syncs them across devices
• provides multiplayer server infrastructure making it easy to play with friends
• provides modding infrastructure, although not all games use it
• provides tools for managing which version of a game you have installed

[wolflink@sh.itjust.works]

Plenty of Steam games are DRM free and will launch just fine without Steam installed

[tburkhol@lemmy.world]

Use the launcher to install, then just run the exe. Point is you don't need to interact with the launcher, its ads, and its bugs every time you want to play.

[nibodhika@lemmy.world]

All of my systems are Linux, launching Windows games on Linux is not trivial, Steam takes away almost all of that complication. It also provides an excellent ten foot interface for me to use on my TV and buy/install/launch games from my couch without any hassle. Speaking of controller usage, Steam provides excellent support to remap controllers even if a game doesn't support it, and provide amazing features at that (for example multiple layers, gyroscopic mouse)

Games getting updated automatically is a great feature, I still remember having to download patches and applying them one by one after a fresh install. Similarly Steam also provides a workshop that allows you to install mods and keep them synced across different systems automatically.

Finally, the convenience of cloud saves for someone with multiple systems or who uninstalls a game and reinstalls it later is not easy to achieve without a launcher (I still have a saves folder backed up somewhere from before).

Besides all of that Achievement and other social features are important for some people. And for some games being able to easily play online with friends is amazing (if you're not old enough to know what GameSpy is you don't know what it was back then), although I don't play too many online games so this one is not that important for me, but when I need that feature it is very handy.

In short there are many reasons, but if you're playing old single-player games with mouse+keyboard on only one windows PC, then none of my reasons apply to you. Still I would argue that buying games on steam is easier than pirating them, so there's the convenience factor still (e.g. at a friend's house and they mention a game, open my phone, and in 5 min with a very intuitive flow I have the game downloading on my home PC so when I come back it's ready to play).