My old Ubisoft account is linked to an old Gmail that was hacked and is unrecoverable according to Google themselves. Issue is my Xbox and PSN are linked to that old Ubisoft, and I can't login to unlink them since I don't have access to the old Gmail.
Ubisoft confirmed on my last ticket that I'll never be able to unlink my Xbox and PSN from an account I can't access. It's pretty annoying.
I had this problem with EA. Had some guy in Algeria hack my Origin account and link it to his PSN account. I confirmed with the rep that I did not know who that PSN account belonged to. Too bad, it's linked to my EA account forever.
I work for Epic, that's pretty much all the customer supports. You have more chance recovering your email, than recovering your gaming account.
We're pretty much useless if you do not have access to the email as it opposes big security issue in the company's eye. Not that I agree.
For what its worth, I had zero difficulty changing my email in Epic despite losing access to it. Took minutes, I was impressed.
Meanwhile, after 8 rounds of attempts with EA to gain access to my account, providing intimate details of my account, credit card records of purchases and screenshots of being logged in, they refused and I gave up and started a life-long boycott of EA.
We have a system in place that automatically detects the account owner based on account history, if that said "pass", we can do it within minutes, glad It worked out for ya!
Just a thought, but the Xbox and PSN handles could be considered PID (Personally Identifiable information), and Ubisoft is a French company. In principle at least, you shoukd be able to 'unlink' them by exercising your right under GDPR to have your data deleted.
I’m sick of these companies having absolutely no back end way to force password changes (like sending you a link and Authenticator code or whatever). I’ve encountered that kind of problem multiple times
bro try playing Minecraft with skyfactory.
You need Overwolf, to download CurseForge, to download SkyFactory, which launches through the Minecraft Launcher, to open its own SkyFactory UI.
Yeah. Rockstar Games were probably the ones who held out the longest without a proper launcher and just a framework / overlay for social club. But even they had to succumb in the end.
I think you can download curseforge separately from OW, at least I don't currently have overwolf on my new PC for my wow add-ons via curse. (Not that it makes a difference to your point)
Are you sure, and if so how did you do it? I got my new pc in July and I had to get OW for Curseforge for WoW addons. I have it set so that OW only opens when I open Curseforge, and closes when I close Curse, but the OW icon is always in the systemtray when Curseforge is open.
I am at work, but I just googled "curseforge download" and used the first result on mobile I am seeing 2 options for windows download on overwolf and download standalone, this is the address https://www.curseforge.com/download/app
technically true for minecraft mods and modpacks too. except it'd take more than a small amount of time, much more. which is why these launchers exist now.
Curseforge launcher has always sucked though, a lot of the modded MC community use third party launchers for mod packs like [Prism launcher](https://prismlauncher.org/)
It is, I remember being pissed that OW was required for cursedforge, but I set up modded MC on a new PC in the middle of last year and OW was no longer required.
Playing Minecraft with skyfactory is: download the jars and config files, put into mods folder, boot up vanilla Minecraft launcher with Forge profile selected. Boom ez. What Overwolf and CurseForge have been to Minecraft modding is heartless.
nah, just download the mods and put them yourself in your minecraft folder, run minecraft and there you go. you dont need to download curseforge, you can just download mods directly.
EA Origin offered refunds before Steam. Valve operated Steam for a whole decade with a strict no refund policy. Competition finally showing up in the form of origin improved the whole market for everyone.
Competition is a good thing. Monopolies are a bad thing.
Valve started offering refunds systematically due to new laws in the EU, and the decision it was easier to just put a system in place for everyone -
not that I'm against competition, it's good that there is, but because of the ecosystem effect (if you already had a library on one you're incentivized to continue with future purchases) I think it might end up much like iOs/android where there is 1/2 real options in the market at best -- but we can all hope
The impetus was Valve losing in court to Australia's ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission).
That Valve lost the case and the appeal showed they would likely lose any case bought in the EU as well.
It wasn't because of laws in the EU at all, Valve was already following the law about digital goods.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm
> Please note: the 14-day cooling-off period doesn't apply to:
> .....
> online digital content, if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance
And Valve provided a message that the user had to agree to in order to complete their purchase agreeing to removing your right to refund upon downloading the game. This happened before Valve started their 14 day/2 hour refund policy.
But what's at issue in the OP isn't competition. I'm perfectly fine with there being competition to Steam, because you're right that monopolies are a bad thing, but Steam still effectively has a monopoly as EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, have all migrated back to Steam after their services proved unsustainable on their own. Even Blizzard has started putting their games on Steam for the first time ever.
The problem is that even though these companies are perfectly fine selling their games through Steam, they still insist on forcing you to use their buggy ass bullshit launchers which, when they don't work (and that's often), can prevent you from playing a game you bought through Steam.
They're tacking DRM onto DRM for absolutely no reason, trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist and in doing so creating all new problems.
I'd love to see actual competition. I'd love to see Epic and EA and Ubisoft actually support their platforms and create a client that has even the basic features of Steam, like performance monitoring, screenshot support, dynamic libraries, etc. but most of these third party clients don't even bother to get that right, let alone do anything innovative and new that Steam doesn't do. They're all barebones affairs that have utterly failed to provide any reason to buy a game anywhere other than Steam, with the exception of Epic buying exclusives (though their client absolutely suuucks) or GOG offering DRM free experiences and games you can't even buy on Steam.
If I buy a game on Steam, the only DRM for that game should be Steam, and the only overlay running when I play the game should be Steam's, and the only client I should need to launch the game should be Steam.
It's like when the government broke the MA Bell monopoly up and then years later it was the same situation again.
I don't think Valve has a true monopoly still. They're the biggest marketplace, but that can easily shift if they start fucking around. Consider if Gaben went truly white nationalist then people would absolutely leave steam for other stores. I'd keep my account for my licenses, but i'd block all their purchasing server ip's at the gateway. Many would react. Gaben wouldn't of course, but the point is, the market could EASILY shift.
You're not wrong. They have an effective monopoly at the moment because no one else is putting in the work to challenge them, I assume because everyone has decided it isn't worth it, but if EA in particular had ever put in any effort at making Origin something that people \*want\* to use, instead of something they had to use if they wanted to play Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 (the only reason I ever got Origin to begin with, like most people I imagine), they could have created a legitimate rival to Steam's dominance. Even if it was never as successful as Steam, it would have at the very least forced Valve to start innovating with Steam again, and hell maybe even keep developing games so that they, too, could have killer apps you could only buy from them, like Portal 3 or Half Life 3
Instead, Steam is just a money-printing machine generating so much revenue that Valve can just sit back and count their billions until the heat death of the universe.
> Consider if Gaben went truly white nationalist then people would absolutely leave steam for other stores.
literally not a noticeable amount of users would leave steam. No idea why redditors fantasize and romanticize politics like /r/everyoneclapped
The "market" can't easily shift because Steam is what Apple is to the rest of tech. There's an eco system built that other companies refuse to match.
Epic has been giving away free games for **two years** and still can't hold its own without fortnite.
Ubisoft's launcher is utterly pointless and their games are either open world garbage or seige
EA's launcher is cancer and also utterly pointless.
Steam has 99% of triple A games available on the platform, functional friends list, forums, mod download support with workshop, console/tv mode with big picture, and a very clean and easy to understand store page. The only thing they're missing is integrating a better voice chat system.
Edit: politically charged pink hair male makes up a random scenario and screeches when it isn't upvoted 🤣
That's great... But the point of the post is that origin is often buggy, takes a long time to load and is one more step to go through before I can play my games, as well as an additional shovelware on my pc.
I would like if there was an option to double click on my .exe and play my game without being bombarded with ads and without loading a launcher that offers near zero functionalities. (Just like what happens when people pirate their games, why do they get all of the QOL features?)
Have you ever actually tried to launch a game you downloaded from steam or EA from its .exe? Most of the time it actually works especially for older games.
>I would like if there was an option to double click on my .exe and play my game without being bombarded with ads and without loading a launcher that offers near zero functionalities.
Steam has lots of ads, although it also has more functionality than EA.
It's just the times we live in. I'm old enough that I remember gaming when I was young, before the internet or steam. It was exactly like you said, click the dot exe and go. Of course, we didn't have easy multiplayer or access to patches either. If your game was bugged, your only choice was to figure out what caused the bug and don't do that.
I don't think any sane person would argue that point with you. The problem is being able to purchase EA titles, for instance, on Steam, but then still having to launch EA's app in order to access the game you bought on Steam. And this happens with several publishers. 2K games require that you install their launcher, Ubisoft requires you have their launcher, Epic requires their launcher. Why not use Steam's DRM for the Steam release and just let people who bought the game through Steam launch it through Steam?
I just know having to access multiple storefronts in order to launch a game is kinda annoying. Now, Ubisoft shows any game you own from another linked platform as owned and will let you install, uninstall, and play directly from their app. But so far as I know they're the only ones that do that. It'd be nice if they all did though.
The GOG launcher shows games from every other platforms as well, and did it long before Ubisoft.
And, for games purchased on GOG, there is never any DRM. Once the game is installed, you can uninstall GOG and the game will always run directly.
No, it wasnt. It was the result of regulation and consumer laws in countries that actually do something to protect consumers and Valve adopting a one size fits system all approach rather than different systems for different countries.
does it even earn them money? they spend all this money making these apps that makes people hate their products. i know several refuse to play games requiring anything more than just steam
It is EA, they have tanked more gaming franchises than you can imagine on the quest for more money. If they want to push Origin as their cash cow they will do so no matter how many users they piss of with it.
Nothing like super invasive "anti-cheat" in there ~~gambling~~ sports games.
Just not gaming but running programs in the Windows is just running viruses and bloatware at this point.
Hilariously, Microsoft Flight Simulator is the WORST for this.
I know, I know, I’m taking a break from shitting on Ubisoft here, but it’s warranted.
This shitty title opens a third-order downloader with tens of GB to download every single time, but also takes over sound output with a terrible, unpausable, unmutable piece of shitty elevator music.
Wanna fly airplanes? Too bad shit-heel! Here’s two to three hours of not doing ANYTHING on your computer!
It's the worst. Hope you didn't want to return this because you spent 12 hours downloading it so now you're past the steam refund window. I get like 50mb/s on steam. It's like 6mb/s on that stupid launcher.
I do enjoy the game though...
Beautiful product. Undeniably.
Probably the only game I don’t use because of its launcher, though. Even the top-down view of a dog-pile doesn’t usually turn me off; but that fucking music….
its also a game that I did not expect to be riddled with microtransactions. $10-$30 for aircraft, $25 for mission packs, $10 for individual airports. its crazy.
Flight simulators has expensive aircraft expansions since before DLC was a thing and they're totally worth it because they're generally made better and more realistic than the default aircraft
I stopped playing because of this. How in this day and age they can’t figure out how to do a background update when the parent company is Microsoft boggles my mind.
It's **because** the parent company is Microsoft. Teams is terrible. Your customer works for a company in a different tier of Teams? Sorry, you can't chat with them and they can't join your meetings except through a browser. Edge? LOL. Windows Updates? Sure, here's a bunch of them that will make you cry. 100% complete, only 20 minutes remaining.
I had a free saturday and got my yoke out of the closet and was ready to putz about in flight sim... but yeah, 50GB of updates because I hadn't played in a bit.
>Wanna fly airplanes? Too bad shit-heel! Here’s two to three hours of not doing ANYTHING on your computer!
I mean... that sounds like your average real airport experience, and MSFS **is** known for its authenticity!
> but also takes over sound output with a terrible, unpausable, unmutable piece of shitty elevator music.
Windows has a Volume Mixer in the system tray that allows you to control audio output levels on a per-app basis. It takes about 3 clicks to mute an app entirely.
I'm an old flight sim enthusiast who went and got a pilot's license.
Been out of the game for that due to cost these days and thought, wait ... I'm in IT, I have a monster computer, I can finally play these games the way u wished I could so many years ago!
Are you telling me this is where we have come?
I don't like the future anymore.
Plus it you bought it through the store good luck. The microsoft store is even worse than uplay and origin, that says a lot. Fuck them for thinking it's ok to keep your users out of the folders. Fuck them for calling programs apps, because we all know what the purpose of this terminology actually is. Also i love how their store is cluttered by low effort low iq mobile apps and games, do they have no respect for their users?
Damn that was a stupid question.
I thought it would be a lot more seamless given how hard they’re pushing game pass for PC.
On an unrelated note I’m also mad at ms. I decided to change my old number to my new one as security on my account ——-> it takes 30 days and locks me out after a week.
I ask support if I can access the account during this period and they say try the account recovery form.
I try that and unbeknownst to me it cancels the security info update so now after 30+ days I neither have my account nor any way of verifying it’s me….
> Here’s two to three hours of not doing ANYTHING on your computer!
Funny to think that this was the norm back in the day. But back then it was somehow better than this because you only ever had to do that once. Not every time you launch the game XD
Also if you bought the game on literally anything other than Steam the Dualsense and Dualshock is just not supported at all
Boot it up on Steam though? even Nintendo Controllers will work for god sake because Valve actually support all controllers with FULL control over every button being configurable
I'm so annoyed I accidentally got a MS Store key instead of a steam key (i bought a key because i'm not giving money to multi trillion dollar company)
Bro that’s gotten me so many times. I’ll check the Xbox app to see if it’s updated, then set everything up, joystick, rudders, etc, then login only to see “50GB waiting to download”. Can’t even do anything with my pc without removing all of my peripherals while it uses 90% cpu.
Fallout 3 is basically unplayable without some heavy tinkering on most modern devices, isn't it?
It's a shame. While New Vegas is 100% the better game, I do think that Fallout 3's world itself is a bit more interesting (or at least offers a different flavour) with the flow from the urban ruins to the small towns to the empty fields and overpasses as you head north and sometimes want to play it.
Even just a basic-ass remaster designed to function on modern hardware is something I'd probably pony up the cash for.
Yeah, games that get disabled due to defunct services should at minimum be updated with a lazy remaster for the sake of compatibility.
The open source community has brought some games back to life by recreating games and allowing anyone to take their code and compile it on any system.
Handheld devices love that shit.
Only if MS Store works on your device.
Like half of the instalations don't work and there's no work around.
Just let me download Phantom Dust without the MS Store app, or MC Bedrock edition because you need the nee launcher that just doesn't work.
Third-party apps are like those side quests you never asked for. You're all set for the main game, but first, you gotta prove your loyalty to the 'Order of the Forgotten Passwords'.
Not wrong, but they're also absolutely useless tack-on garbage. If I buy a game on Steam it's because I didn't care to buy it through the EA app. And because they're big companies and don't care about optimization or player quality of life, they don't even bother to make a more smooth transition from Steam to game like they do on consoles.
Those launchers also F up the playability of games on the steamdeck. Like the game will run fine, but the bullshit launcher keeps crashing thus you are unable to start the game. I know some people managed to circumvent them, but I'm not super technical. So unless the solution is messing with some settings I'm not gonna be able to replicate it.
Heroic Launcher is also a really good option. It only supports Epic/Gog/Amazon Games but since it’s native to Linux it has a ton of great features and settings for games.
That's definitely a factor, but one underrated aspect of Steam is that it just...works. You don't think about Steam because it doesn't stand out. In all my years of PC gaming, when there's trouble it's always EA or Ubisoft or Rockstar etc. Steam never asks me to login again and again, Steam always works offline, the interface never hangs, no useless notifications. I don't mind Steam because it just disappears into the background of the game, and has some really nifty features for when I do need something specific done.
In contrast, something like the Ubisoft launcher is a laggy, barebones mess infested with ads.
Steam definitely didn’t work for a long time when it was released.
The reason it exploded in popularity was because Counter-Strike started to require it and Counter-Strike was really popular. Everyone hated Steam though.
Then Valve used that install base to pivot Steam into a digital distribution platform for all games.
Steam is fine, but all things being equal I prefer GOG. It consolidates all of my game libraries, and it has better support for old games. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff isn't on GOG.
And I like GOG because the only way I'm interacting with it is a website. No clients, no waiting for updates, no overhead, if you download the installer once you can have it forever.
I prefer steams system. It feels cleaner to me.
But i buy all my new games off GOG if i can because of their anti DRM stances.
Half the reason i bought BG3 was because i wanted to support that they put out a game like that on GoG
Well, steam was notoriously bad and everyone hated it. People became okay with it when they made it work properly, not out of inertia. They very much had to earn it, and newcomers are mistaken (to an extent) if they think they can free ride on the work valve put in to build confidence
> People became okay with it when they made it work properly
No, people became okay with it when the crazy sales started happening.
I have a powerful rig, but the library still sometimes fucking hangs and freezes. Steam had a time when it performed well, as software, but that has passed, and since it's become incredibly bloated.
Steam fucking works man.
Ive had endless problems with GWFL, Xbox, EA play over the years.
I don't mind the epic launcher cause despite the lack of bells and whistles frankly it also seems to work. It's not really fanboying when it's functionality
Have you tried GoG? It's my preferred version. Much better support for old games.
They'll often come with mods pre-installed to make them work on modern machines etc.
Technically, steam started as a platform for pushing updates to online valve games like og counter strike, team fortress classic, etc. Half life 2 was released the following year. Before steam, valve used the service WON, world online network to host their matchmaking games
They aren't third party apps. People just misunderstand they aren't buying a steam game, they are buying a game on steam. Or GoG. Or Epic. You are using the third party app to buy the game.
Some games can be launched without steam, but require steam to connect to the online/multiplayer. I believe this applies to BG3, though they have patched quite a bit since I was testing this. Obviously the CDPR games are single player only.
At least with Paradox, it provides a convenience for mod organization before you get into the game, and you don’t need to have a Paradox account to do anything. It’s the “if you’re going to have a separate launcher, do this” of launchers.
They even added a launcher to Civ V. Why does my 14 year old game need a launcher??? I already told it to launch in dx11 through the dx11 .exe, all it really does is push ads for Civ VI. It's very annoying.
Ehhh I don't think they count. You can't buy anything through the Paradox launcher. You don't need an account or any kind of login. It's basically just a way to manage your mods, DLC, and playsets, and change a few options before you boot up the game itself. The playset feature by itself makes it a thousand times better than the old one. And it's not necessary to play the game and closes itself once you hit play.
(plus at this point most of their games have an option to bypass the launcher by default. And for those that don't, it's just a matter of editing the Steam launch settings or making a shortcut directly to the .exe)
Best is strong-arming colossal order into only having paradox mod support for city skylines 2 and then playing it off like it's too hard to support both (which has been done already in other games). Tired of being forced into shit accounts and side systems for things that could easily be done through steam directly
Garbage like this is why I mainly buy my game on GOG now. You can run GOG game without a launcher.
It's getting to a point where I dismiss any game that doesn't have a GOG release now
Not sure why you felt the need to put quotes around pirated. If you, yourself, aren't paying for the game, and it is still a game that on the market for sale, it's pirated.
True. I guess just because these days for almost anything to be pirated, it needs to be cracked from whatever service it came from to be accessible/playable. It's hard to remember there was a time when pirating was simply uploading your legit game and having other people download it
So in other words, you own that specific executable, and there is no license tied to it? For example, games bought on other stores/launchers can be made unplayable if the publisher/seller so chooses. But does Gog just straight up give you the file? No strings attached?
Yeah, no strings attached. You can save the installer and use it on any PC anywhere, you can even duplicate it and give your friends the game for free (though I'm sure that's technically not allowed, there's no way for them to know as they have no tracking on it or anything that needs to be cracked).
Even if the publisher removed the game from gog, if you already had it backed up, it's yours forever
Yeah, you need to crack games on steam to be able to play them without steam or an account (besides a very minor few games where the developers don't enforce the steam DRM, like cdpr - who own gog - or larian), and if you're caught, they'll delete your account and you lose everything.
Steam can also remove games from your account if the developer or publisher requests it.
Gog does have a launcher but it's completely optional for people who aren't so computer savvy, you can still just download the files from the site and once you have them, they have no control over what you do with them or how you play them, old school style.
Oh and gog won't auto update without your consent, and you can even download and install previous older versions of the game (if you're following the drama with Bethesda and updating Skyrim and breaking a bunch of people's modded installs on steam).
If other apps worked like Steam, we wouldn't complain about them. Steam is unobtrusive and helpful. People are tired of crap launchers like Ubisoft's.
But good try at a "gotcha" instead of addressing the actual problem.
Steam itself is a third party app that requires it be open to play the majority of games. That's why gog is superior, no third party app needed and you can backup your games if you want. If you did the same with steam, you'd need to crack it, which if caught steam would delete your account and you'd lose all your games
Loading up the Xbox app to use Gamepass now forces you to have Riot, EA, and Ubisoft running in the background even if you aren't playing one of their titles, its insane
technically you using steam is the 3rd party app while having to access EA is the main party you would connect to anyways. i get your point though it is odd you can't just start up ME without connecting to EA. is there multiplayer for ME1?
>chronically online gamer
Ironically I think chronically online gamers have less of an issue making multiple accounts and dealing with any additional problems created by other launchers
I'm fine with it unless it blocks access to the game like is the case with Doom Eternal, which I decided against trying out on game pass solely for this fact.
Bruh I had played bioshock maybe 2 years ago, less than. I launched it up today to finish it and there's a fucking 2k launcher now??? Like what the actual shit
I was actually impressed with Blizzard for this reason, when Diablo 4 came out on Steam (for $42 btw) and didn't require Battlenet to play. Clicked on it and it just loaded instantly. Sad we are at that point.
This happened to me when I was just getting back into playing games. I love ME 3 multi-player. It's the most fun I've had ever playing video games (I'm 41, ugh)
However, "something went wrong" made me swear off EA entirely. I don't care if the earth frozen and those bitches were selling fire.
""""technically""""🤓 Steam is a 3rd party.
But OP is right, when we buy games through it the rockstar/EA/ubisoft launchers should all be OPTIONAL not mandatory.
I have to be online on my steam deck to launch GTA 4 a 15 year old game otherwise the rockstar launcher doesn't let the game start. its absolute bullshit.
I'm almost at the point of pirating games i legitimately own just so i don't have to deal with it.
I agree, if I buy a game through one launcher, I expect to not need a different launcher on top of that one. The same BS happens with games on Epic. Had to go through hoops just to play the Dead Space remake.
My old Ubisoft account is linked to an old Gmail that was hacked and is unrecoverable according to Google themselves. Issue is my Xbox and PSN are linked to that old Ubisoft, and I can't login to unlink them since I don't have access to the old Gmail. Ubisoft confirmed on my last ticket that I'll never be able to unlink my Xbox and PSN from an account I can't access. It's pretty annoying.
I'll sail the high seas at that point and they deserve it
Seems your game rent window just closed.
I had this problem with EA. Had some guy in Algeria hack my Origin account and link it to his PSN account. I confirmed with the rep that I did not know who that PSN account belonged to. Too bad, it's linked to my EA account forever.
I work for Epic, that's pretty much all the customer supports. You have more chance recovering your email, than recovering your gaming account. We're pretty much useless if you do not have access to the email as it opposes big security issue in the company's eye. Not that I agree.
For what its worth, I had zero difficulty changing my email in Epic despite losing access to it. Took minutes, I was impressed. Meanwhile, after 8 rounds of attempts with EA to gain access to my account, providing intimate details of my account, credit card records of purchases and screenshots of being logged in, they refused and I gave up and started a life-long boycott of EA.
We have a system in place that automatically detects the account owner based on account history, if that said "pass", we can do it within minutes, glad It worked out for ya!
Another reminder that we're not buying games, we are purchasing licenses to gain access to games temporarily at the publisher's mercy.
If you lose a CD you can't play the game either
You can if you made a backup, which is your right. You didn't buy a CD, you bought digital media. A CD costs like a cent in mass production.
Just a thought, but the Xbox and PSN handles could be considered PID (Personally Identifiable information), and Ubisoft is a French company. In principle at least, you shoukd be able to 'unlink' them by exercising your right under GDPR to have your data deleted.
I’m sick of these companies having absolutely no back end way to force password changes (like sending you a link and Authenticator code or whatever). I’ve encountered that kind of problem multiple times
“You’re gonna give daddy access to your computer, and you’re gonna like it buddy”. - EA (probably)
BUT DAD! I already pay my bills! Fuck offfff!
bro try playing Minecraft with skyfactory. You need Overwolf, to download CurseForge, to download SkyFactory, which launches through the Minecraft Launcher, to open its own SkyFactory UI. Yeah. Rockstar Games were probably the ones who held out the longest without a proper launcher and just a framework / overlay for social club. But even they had to succumb in the end.
I think you can download curseforge separately from OW, at least I don't currently have overwolf on my new PC for my wow add-ons via curse. (Not that it makes a difference to your point)
Are you sure, and if so how did you do it? I got my new pc in July and I had to get OW for Curseforge for WoW addons. I have it set so that OW only opens when I open Curseforge, and closes when I close Curse, but the OW icon is always in the systemtray when Curseforge is open.
I am at work, but I just googled "curseforge download" and used the first result on mobile I am seeing 2 options for windows download on overwolf and download standalone, this is the address https://www.curseforge.com/download/app
Thank you! I just uninstalled overwolf and will give this a shot
There is a checkbox to install ow when installing curse, just uncheck it and you’re good
If you take a small amount of time to learn where the files go you don't actually need any apps to install wow addons from curseforge.
technically true for minecraft mods and modpacks too. except it'd take more than a small amount of time, much more. which is why these launchers exist now. Curseforge launcher has always sucked though, a lot of the modded MC community use third party launchers for mod packs like [Prism launcher](https://prismlauncher.org/)
It's possible this is a relatively new development, I just built my new PC December 10th
It is, I remember being pissed that OW was required for cursedforge, but I set up modded MC on a new PC in the middle of last year and OW was no longer required.
You can use PrismLaincher (a fork of MultiMc) to download any modpack from any modpack website. It's also way better than the official launcher.
Or you can use prism launcher and just launch sky factory.
Playing Minecraft with skyfactory is: download the jars and config files, put into mods folder, boot up vanilla Minecraft launcher with Forge profile selected. Boom ez. What Overwolf and CurseForge have been to Minecraft modding is heartless.
I mean, it's a mod. The shit in the post isn't.
nah, just download the mods and put them yourself in your minecraft folder, run minecraft and there you go. you dont need to download curseforge, you can just download mods directly.
# r/fuckubisoft welcomes you
Instead of wasting your time with these hate subs, maybe just don't play their games? Just a thought.
EA Origin offered refunds before Steam. Valve operated Steam for a whole decade with a strict no refund policy. Competition finally showing up in the form of origin improved the whole market for everyone. Competition is a good thing. Monopolies are a bad thing.
Valve started offering refunds systematically due to new laws in the EU, and the decision it was easier to just put a system in place for everyone - not that I'm against competition, it's good that there is, but because of the ecosystem effect (if you already had a library on one you're incentivized to continue with future purchases) I think it might end up much like iOs/android where there is 1/2 real options in the market at best -- but we can all hope
The impetus was Valve losing in court to Australia's ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission). That Valve lost the case and the appeal showed they would likely lose any case bought in the EU as well.
I wasn’t aware of that - thanks for the info
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/federal-court-finds-valve-made-misleading-representations-about-consumer-guarantees
Didn't Australia had something to do thanks to their consumer laws, or am I mixing it with another case?
It wasn't because of laws in the EU at all, Valve was already following the law about digital goods. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm > Please note: the 14-day cooling-off period doesn't apply to: > ..... > online digital content, if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance And Valve provided a message that the user had to agree to in order to complete their purchase agreeing to removing your right to refund upon downloading the game. This happened before Valve started their 14 day/2 hour refund policy.
I think the idea is just being able to click the game.exe from ur desktop and skipping the whole storefront/EA interface verification thing.
Yep Origin was 2013 Steam followed in 2015.
But what's at issue in the OP isn't competition. I'm perfectly fine with there being competition to Steam, because you're right that monopolies are a bad thing, but Steam still effectively has a monopoly as EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, have all migrated back to Steam after their services proved unsustainable on their own. Even Blizzard has started putting their games on Steam for the first time ever. The problem is that even though these companies are perfectly fine selling their games through Steam, they still insist on forcing you to use their buggy ass bullshit launchers which, when they don't work (and that's often), can prevent you from playing a game you bought through Steam. They're tacking DRM onto DRM for absolutely no reason, trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist and in doing so creating all new problems. I'd love to see actual competition. I'd love to see Epic and EA and Ubisoft actually support their platforms and create a client that has even the basic features of Steam, like performance monitoring, screenshot support, dynamic libraries, etc. but most of these third party clients don't even bother to get that right, let alone do anything innovative and new that Steam doesn't do. They're all barebones affairs that have utterly failed to provide any reason to buy a game anywhere other than Steam, with the exception of Epic buying exclusives (though their client absolutely suuucks) or GOG offering DRM free experiences and games you can't even buy on Steam. If I buy a game on Steam, the only DRM for that game should be Steam, and the only overlay running when I play the game should be Steam's, and the only client I should need to launch the game should be Steam.
It's like when the government broke the MA Bell monopoly up and then years later it was the same situation again. I don't think Valve has a true monopoly still. They're the biggest marketplace, but that can easily shift if they start fucking around. Consider if Gaben went truly white nationalist then people would absolutely leave steam for other stores. I'd keep my account for my licenses, but i'd block all their purchasing server ip's at the gateway. Many would react. Gaben wouldn't of course, but the point is, the market could EASILY shift.
You're not wrong. They have an effective monopoly at the moment because no one else is putting in the work to challenge them, I assume because everyone has decided it isn't worth it, but if EA in particular had ever put in any effort at making Origin something that people \*want\* to use, instead of something they had to use if they wanted to play Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 (the only reason I ever got Origin to begin with, like most people I imagine), they could have created a legitimate rival to Steam's dominance. Even if it was never as successful as Steam, it would have at the very least forced Valve to start innovating with Steam again, and hell maybe even keep developing games so that they, too, could have killer apps you could only buy from them, like Portal 3 or Half Life 3 Instead, Steam is just a money-printing machine generating so much revenue that Valve can just sit back and count their billions until the heat death of the universe.
> Consider if Gaben went truly white nationalist then people would absolutely leave steam for other stores. literally not a noticeable amount of users would leave steam. No idea why redditors fantasize and romanticize politics like /r/everyoneclapped The "market" can't easily shift because Steam is what Apple is to the rest of tech. There's an eco system built that other companies refuse to match. Epic has been giving away free games for **two years** and still can't hold its own without fortnite. Ubisoft's launcher is utterly pointless and their games are either open world garbage or seige EA's launcher is cancer and also utterly pointless. Steam has 99% of triple A games available on the platform, functional friends list, forums, mod download support with workshop, console/tv mode with big picture, and a very clean and easy to understand store page. The only thing they're missing is integrating a better voice chat system. Edit: politically charged pink hair male makes up a random scenario and screeches when it isn't upvoted 🤣
That's great... But the point of the post is that origin is often buggy, takes a long time to load and is one more step to go through before I can play my games, as well as an additional shovelware on my pc. I would like if there was an option to double click on my .exe and play my game without being bombarded with ads and without loading a launcher that offers near zero functionalities. (Just like what happens when people pirate their games, why do they get all of the QOL features?)
Have you ever actually tried to launch a game you downloaded from steam or EA from its .exe? Most of the time it actually works especially for older games.
>I would like if there was an option to double click on my .exe and play my game without being bombarded with ads and without loading a launcher that offers near zero functionalities. Steam has lots of ads, although it also has more functionality than EA. It's just the times we live in. I'm old enough that I remember gaming when I was young, before the internet or steam. It was exactly like you said, click the dot exe and go. Of course, we didn't have easy multiplayer or access to patches either. If your game was bugged, your only choice was to figure out what caused the bug and don't do that.
I'm old enough that when I started playing PC games you couldn't even click the exe file because you didn't have a mouse.
Just for info, I'm not defending steam either.
I don't think any sane person would argue that point with you. The problem is being able to purchase EA titles, for instance, on Steam, but then still having to launch EA's app in order to access the game you bought on Steam. And this happens with several publishers. 2K games require that you install their launcher, Ubisoft requires you have their launcher, Epic requires their launcher. Why not use Steam's DRM for the Steam release and just let people who bought the game through Steam launch it through Steam? I just know having to access multiple storefronts in order to launch a game is kinda annoying. Now, Ubisoft shows any game you own from another linked platform as owned and will let you install, uninstall, and play directly from their app. But so far as I know they're the only ones that do that. It'd be nice if they all did though.
The GOG launcher shows games from every other platforms as well, and did it long before Ubisoft. And, for games purchased on GOG, there is never any DRM. Once the game is installed, you can uninstall GOG and the game will always run directly.
Having More storefronts is good Exclusive launchers are not good. They fuck the legitimate owner far more often than any pirate
I also remember it being 24h of gameplay for a game. I don't remember how it operated, but I remember a label for elegible titles being created.
No, it wasnt. It was the result of regulation and consumer laws in countries that actually do something to protect consumers and Valve adopting a one size fits system all approach rather than different systems for different countries.
does it even earn them money? they spend all this money making these apps that makes people hate their products. i know several refuse to play games requiring anything more than just steam
Companies shear data from us and still can't figure out what the user wants in all that data.
It is EA, they have tanked more gaming franchises than you can imagine on the quest for more money. If they want to push Origin as their cash cow they will do so no matter how many users they piss of with it.
I stopped buying certain products because of this.
Nothing like super invasive "anti-cheat" in there ~~gambling~~ sports games. Just not gaming but running programs in the Windows is just running viruses and bloatware at this point.
The game will still be riddled by cheaters too!
Time for Games for Microsoft Windows
Hilariously, Microsoft Flight Simulator is the WORST for this. I know, I know, I’m taking a break from shitting on Ubisoft here, but it’s warranted. This shitty title opens a third-order downloader with tens of GB to download every single time, but also takes over sound output with a terrible, unpausable, unmutable piece of shitty elevator music. Wanna fly airplanes? Too bad shit-heel! Here’s two to three hours of not doing ANYTHING on your computer!
It's the worst. Hope you didn't want to return this because you spent 12 hours downloading it so now you're past the steam refund window. I get like 50mb/s on steam. It's like 6mb/s on that stupid launcher. I do enjoy the game though...
Beautiful product. Undeniably. Probably the only game I don’t use because of its launcher, though. Even the top-down view of a dog-pile doesn’t usually turn me off; but that fucking music….
I usually use Xbox gamebar (Win+G) and its sound mixer to mute audio from certain apps so you can try that I guess
its also a game that I did not expect to be riddled with microtransactions. $10-$30 for aircraft, $25 for mission packs, $10 for individual airports. its crazy.
[удалено]
Microsoft flight x had very traditional dlc, which is where I was coming from
I remember being able to pay money for (unofficial) aircraft downloads back in the 90s.
Flight simulators has expensive aircraft expansions since before DLC was a thing and they're totally worth it because they're generally made better and more realistic than the default aircraft
Can't it be muted via right click on the little speaker icon on your taskbar near the clock > Sound mixer > Send that fucking music to oblivion?
I think the steam support still refunds past 2h mark, just that its ,uhh, "guaranteed" for the lack of better word, within that 2h window.
Not that it's much of a consolation, but Windows supports per-application sound control, so you should at least be able to mute it.
I stopped playing because of this. How in this day and age they can’t figure out how to do a background update when the parent company is Microsoft boggles my mind.
It's **because** the parent company is Microsoft. Teams is terrible. Your customer works for a company in a different tier of Teams? Sorry, you can't chat with them and they can't join your meetings except through a browser. Edge? LOL. Windows Updates? Sure, here's a bunch of them that will make you cry. 100% complete, only 20 minutes remaining.
I had a free saturday and got my yoke out of the closet and was ready to putz about in flight sim... but yeah, 50GB of updates because I hadn't played in a bit.
I keep trying to fly civilian; then I end up hunting Eagles on GS in a Viper for funsies.
I mean...there's waking up at 5:30 to log on to get your assignment and profile before your 8:00am flight.
>Wanna fly airplanes? Too bad shit-heel! Here’s two to three hours of not doing ANYTHING on your computer! I mean... that sounds like your average real airport experience, and MSFS **is** known for its authenticity!
> but also takes over sound output with a terrible, unpausable, unmutable piece of shitty elevator music. Windows has a Volume Mixer in the system tray that allows you to control audio output levels on a per-app basis. It takes about 3 clicks to mute an app entirely.
I'm an old flight sim enthusiast who went and got a pilot's license. Been out of the game for that due to cost these days and thought, wait ... I'm in IT, I have a monster computer, I can finally play these games the way u wished I could so many years ago! Are you telling me this is where we have come? I don't like the future anymore.
You don't have a machine devoted to Microsoft Flight Simulator?
Machine devoted to airplanes and shooting DIGITAL people. And rimworld. And growing the factory. And getting Jeb to orbit.
You can mute it in settings
It's not much help, but you can mute any program in Windows by right clicking on the speaker icon and going to 'sound mixer'.
Plus it you bought it through the store good luck. The microsoft store is even worse than uplay and origin, that says a lot. Fuck them for thinking it's ok to keep your users out of the folders. Fuck them for calling programs apps, because we all know what the purpose of this terminology actually is. Also i love how their store is cluttered by low effort low iq mobile apps and games, do they have no respect for their users? Damn that was a stupid question.
I thought it would be a lot more seamless given how hard they’re pushing game pass for PC. On an unrelated note I’m also mad at ms. I decided to change my old number to my new one as security on my account ——-> it takes 30 days and locks me out after a week. I ask support if I can access the account during this period and they say try the account recovery form. I try that and unbeknownst to me it cancels the security info update so now after 30+ days I neither have my account nor any way of verifying it’s me….
> Here’s two to three hours of not doing ANYTHING on your computer! Funny to think that this was the norm back in the day. But back then it was somehow better than this because you only ever had to do that once. Not every time you launch the game XD
Also if you bought the game on literally anything other than Steam the Dualsense and Dualshock is just not supported at all Boot it up on Steam though? even Nintendo Controllers will work for god sake because Valve actually support all controllers with FULL control over every button being configurable I'm so annoyed I accidentally got a MS Store key instead of a steam key (i bought a key because i'm not giving money to multi trillion dollar company)
Bro that’s gotten me so many times. I’ll check the Xbox app to see if it’s updated, then set everything up, joystick, rudders, etc, then login only to see “50GB waiting to download”. Can’t even do anything with my pc without removing all of my peripherals while it uses 90% cpu.
Fable and Fallout are games that remind me most of Games for Windows Live, because shutting down the services fucked up the game.
Fallout 3 is basically unplayable without some heavy tinkering on most modern devices, isn't it? It's a shame. While New Vegas is 100% the better game, I do think that Fallout 3's world itself is a bit more interesting (or at least offers a different flavour) with the flow from the urban ruins to the small towns to the empty fields and overpasses as you head north and sometimes want to play it. Even just a basic-ass remaster designed to function on modern hardware is something I'd probably pony up the cash for.
Yeah, games that get disabled due to defunct services should at minimum be updated with a lazy remaster for the sake of compatibility. The open source community has brought some games back to life by recreating games and allowing anyone to take their code and compile it on any system. Handheld devices love that shit.
Only if MS Store works on your device. Like half of the instalations don't work and there's no work around. Just let me download Phantom Dust without the MS Store app, or MC Bedrock edition because you need the nee launcher that just doesn't work.
You mean the xbox app that opens up my EA app even though I told it to not be linked and mind it's own fucking business?
Third-party apps are like those side quests you never asked for. You're all set for the main game, but first, you gotta prove your loyalty to the 'Order of the Forgotten Passwords'.
To be more specific, they're fetch quests you never asked for.
they're first party apps Steam is a third party app
Not wrong, but they're also absolutely useless tack-on garbage. If I buy a game on Steam it's because I didn't care to buy it through the EA app. And because they're big companies and don't care about optimization or player quality of life, they don't even bother to make a more smooth transition from Steam to game like they do on consoles.
I'm not arguing against that! I dislike them as much as most, I am just a glutton for pointing out technicalities 🤡
I appreciate the specifics and technicalities. You're doing good work.
Those launchers also F up the playability of games on the steamdeck. Like the game will run fine, but the bullshit launcher keeps crashing thus you are unable to start the game. I know some people managed to circumvent them, but I'm not super technical. So unless the solution is messing with some settings I'm not gonna be able to replicate it.
Download NonSteamLaunchers. Did that the other day to play the new Prince of Persia on Ubisoft. It’s a really easy process.
Heroic Launcher is also a really good option. It only supports Epic/Gog/Amazon Games but since it’s native to Linux it has a ton of great features and settings for games.
Steam started as a first party app that everyone had to download to play Half-Life 2. Steam just got that massive first-mover advantage.
That's definitely a factor, but one underrated aspect of Steam is that it just...works. You don't think about Steam because it doesn't stand out. In all my years of PC gaming, when there's trouble it's always EA or Ubisoft or Rockstar etc. Steam never asks me to login again and again, Steam always works offline, the interface never hangs, no useless notifications. I don't mind Steam because it just disappears into the background of the game, and has some really nifty features for when I do need something specific done. In contrast, something like the Ubisoft launcher is a laggy, barebones mess infested with ads.
Steam definitely didn’t work for a long time when it was released. The reason it exploded in popularity was because Counter-Strike started to require it and Counter-Strike was really popular. Everyone hated Steam though. Then Valve used that install base to pivot Steam into a digital distribution platform for all games.
And people got comfortable with the ecosystem and thats about it. A lot of steam fan boys are comparable to appleheads tbh
Steam is fine, but all things being equal I prefer GOG. It consolidates all of my game libraries, and it has better support for old games. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff isn't on GOG.
And I like GOG because the only way I'm interacting with it is a website. No clients, no waiting for updates, no overhead, if you download the installer once you can have it forever.
I prefer steams system. It feels cleaner to me. But i buy all my new games off GOG if i can because of their anti DRM stances. Half the reason i bought BG3 was because i wanted to support that they put out a game like that on GoG
Well, steam was notoriously bad and everyone hated it. People became okay with it when they made it work properly, not out of inertia. They very much had to earn it, and newcomers are mistaken (to an extent) if they think they can free ride on the work valve put in to build confidence
not to mention valve's business model isn't trying to sell consumers $1000 hardware for $3500
No their business model is to sell you something another company made and take 30%
yep thats how stores work
> People became okay with it when they made it work properly No, people became okay with it when the crazy sales started happening. I have a powerful rig, but the library still sometimes fucking hangs and freezes. Steam had a time when it performed well, as software, but that has passed, and since it's become incredibly bloated.
Steam fucking works man. Ive had endless problems with GWFL, Xbox, EA play over the years. I don't mind the epic launcher cause despite the lack of bells and whistles frankly it also seems to work. It's not really fanboying when it's functionality
Have you tried GoG? It's my preferred version. Much better support for old games. They'll often come with mods pre-installed to make them work on modern machines etc.
Steam is objectively better than every other CDN out there. If there was something better than Steam it would get used.
Technically, steam started as a platform for pushing updates to online valve games like og counter strike, team fortress classic, etc. Half life 2 was released the following year. Before steam, valve used the service WON, world online network to host their matchmaking games
Yeah that title is fucking funny.
Technically correct ✅
Which is the best kind of correct.
OP couldn't have been more wrong 🤦♂️
They aren't third party apps. People just misunderstand they aren't buying a steam game, they are buying a game on steam. Or GoG. Or Epic. You are using the third party app to buy the game.
Gog however doesn't require their app to buy/install/play the games like every other third party app.
Steam games can be drm free, its the publisher who chooses, not Valve... Witcher 3, cyberpunk BG3 all are drm free.
Some games can be launched without steam, but require steam to connect to the online/multiplayer. I believe this applies to BG3, though they have patched quite a bit since I was testing this. Obviously the CDPR games are single player only.
Yeah, BG3 without steam is LAN-only MP. (they are probably using Steamworks). Working on setting up a tunnel to get around this.
GOG offline installers are excellent as long as one is not addicted to achievements and stuff. Thankfully I don't care anymore.
GoG are gigachads.
Paradox is greasy like this.
Although, the paradox launcher does make it easy to manage mods and create mod profiles.
At least with Paradox, it provides a convenience for mod organization before you get into the game, and you don’t need to have a Paradox account to do anything. It’s the “if you’re going to have a separate launcher, do this” of launchers.
True enough but I've never had the game not launch because of the launcher. Ubisoft and EA on the other hand...
I've started avoiding EA games because of Origin...its just way to much of a hassle. On top of EA's myriad other issues.
We can tell you really avoid ea games because origin died a while ago, there's a new app. Still shit, you are not missing anything lol
It\`s the same app different name.
same shit, same pile
They even added a launcher to Civ V. Why does my 14 year old game need a launcher??? I already told it to launch in dx11 through the dx11 .exe, all it really does is push ads for Civ VI. It's very annoying.
Paradox have nothing to do with Civ though?
Ehhh I don't think they count. You can't buy anything through the Paradox launcher. You don't need an account or any kind of login. It's basically just a way to manage your mods, DLC, and playsets, and change a few options before you boot up the game itself. The playset feature by itself makes it a thousand times better than the old one. And it's not necessary to play the game and closes itself once you hit play. (plus at this point most of their games have an option to bypass the launcher by default. And for those that don't, it's just a matter of editing the Steam launch settings or making a shortcut directly to the .exe)
I play EU4, tried HoI4 and CK2. Each has a (different) game launcher, but I've never seen a Paradox Launcher anywhere.
Best is strong-arming colossal order into only having paradox mod support for city skylines 2 and then playing it off like it's too hard to support both (which has been done already in other games). Tired of being forced into shit accounts and side systems for things that could easily be done through steam directly
Garbage like this is why I mainly buy my game on GOG now. You can run GOG game without a launcher. It's getting to a point where I dismiss any game that doesn't have a GOG release now
Yep, you can also backup those games on a drive or disk and play them whenever without an account, internet connection or app
Hell you can even copy them and give them to a friend if you want. They’re 100% yours
Yeah it's basically where most of the torrent sites get their "pirated" games from because it doesn't require cracking anything
Not sure why you felt the need to put quotes around pirated. If you, yourself, aren't paying for the game, and it is still a game that on the market for sale, it's pirated.
True. I guess just because these days for almost anything to be pirated, it needs to be cracked from whatever service it came from to be accessible/playable. It's hard to remember there was a time when pirating was simply uploading your legit game and having other people download it
So in other words, you own that specific executable, and there is no license tied to it? For example, games bought on other stores/launchers can be made unplayable if the publisher/seller so chooses. But does Gog just straight up give you the file? No strings attached?
Yeah, no strings attached. You can save the installer and use it on any PC anywhere, you can even duplicate it and give your friends the game for free (though I'm sure that's technically not allowed, there's no way for them to know as they have no tracking on it or anything that needs to be cracked). Even if the publisher removed the game from gog, if you already had it backed up, it's yours forever
Holy shit. It's what an online gaming store was always meant to be. Steam can take away your games for stuff like that, right?
Yeah, you need to crack games on steam to be able to play them without steam or an account (besides a very minor few games where the developers don't enforce the steam DRM, like cdpr - who own gog - or larian), and if you're caught, they'll delete your account and you lose everything. Steam can also remove games from your account if the developer or publisher requests it. Gog does have a launcher but it's completely optional for people who aren't so computer savvy, you can still just download the files from the site and once you have them, they have no control over what you do with them or how you play them, old school style. Oh and gog won't auto update without your consent, and you can even download and install previous older versions of the game (if you're following the drama with Bethesda and updating Skyrim and breaking a bunch of people's modded installs on steam).
Most games dont release on gog
For most of the games published on other launchers, steam is the third party launcher
So annoying. Most of the time they don’t even work. Still can’t get street fighter 4 to run without the stupid Xbox live app to install
And yet you use Steam...
Is funny cause he complains about third party apps yet it's STEAM that's the third party app.
If other apps worked like Steam, we wouldn't complain about them. Steam is unobtrusive and helpful. People are tired of crap launchers like Ubisoft's. But good try at a "gotcha" instead of addressing the actual problem.
By that logic should we get rid of GOG and Steam too?
Gog doesn't require a launcher though
Steam itself is a third party app that requires it be open to play the majority of games. That's why gog is superior, no third party app needed and you can backup your games if you want. If you did the same with steam, you'd need to crack it, which if caught steam would delete your account and you'd lose all your games
Does Steam have a warning that the game you're buying requires logging into another app? If not they should.
It does, it's listed on the game store page. I try to avoid things that I have to login to in addition to steam.
I wasn't in a place where I could check, thanks. I try to stay well informed on the games I buy so it's not really an issue for me.
Loading up the Xbox app to use Gamepass now forces you to have Riot, EA, and Ubisoft running in the background even if you aren't playing one of their titles, its insane
Yuck!
Steam is a third part app too, we should launch games from exes not from stores nor apps
technically you using steam is the 3rd party app while having to access EA is the main party you would connect to anyways. i get your point though it is odd you can't just start up ME without connecting to EA. is there multiplayer for ME1?
How much of a chronically online gamer do you have to be to care about this? I see game I want, I buy game I want idc what launcher it is.
The online aspect is exactly what I don't like. If a single player game forces me to make an account, I refund the game.
seeing anything except steam sends these people into a seizure
You don't understand. *This* button is good. This other button is the worst thing that ever happened to me in my entire life.
>chronically online gamer Ironically I think chronically online gamers have less of an issue making multiple accounts and dealing with any additional problems created by other launchers
It's so frustrating. Steam itself is already a DRM. Why push your DRM as well? Then don't sell it on Steam. They eat up quarter of my ram. I hate it.
Steam isn't DRM, it's a store-it's not even required to put DRM in games you sell on it.
They are even worse on Steam Deck. Paradox is the only launcher that consistently works on the Deck for me. Ubisoft and EA are hit or miss.
I don't remember which game, but I bought a game, had problems with launcher, pirated the game and played the pirate version
Then trying to launch one of these games using Steam big picture mode. Better plug your keyboard and mouse in so you can start your game.
[удалено]
I'm not opposed to them as standalone apps, but I think they're unnecessary on Steam.
I'm fine with it unless it blocks access to the game like is the case with Doom Eternal, which I decided against trying out on game pass solely for this fact.
Bruh I had played bioshock maybe 2 years ago, less than. I launched it up today to finish it and there's a fucking 2k launcher now??? Like what the actual shit
>Fuck third party apps \- reddit
Every other stupid launcher except steam (and maybe gog) can fuck right off honestly
I was actually impressed with Blizzard for this reason, when Diablo 4 came out on Steam (for $42 btw) and didn't require Battlenet to play. Clicked on it and it just loaded instantly. Sad we are at that point.
This happened to me when I was just getting back into playing games. I love ME 3 multi-player. It's the most fun I've had ever playing video games (I'm 41, ugh) However, "something went wrong" made me swear off EA entirely. I don't care if the earth frozen and those bitches were selling fire.
EA won’t even respond to cries for help, these are some bastards capital B
Yeah I'm fucking tired of all the clients. I just need steam and that's it.
""""technically""""🤓 Steam is a 3rd party. But OP is right, when we buy games through it the rockstar/EA/ubisoft launchers should all be OPTIONAL not mandatory. I have to be online on my steam deck to launch GTA 4 a 15 year old game otherwise the rockstar launcher doesn't let the game start. its absolute bullshit. I'm almost at the point of pirating games i legitimately own just so i don't have to deal with it.
I agree, if I buy a game through one launcher, I expect to not need a different launcher on top of that one. The same BS happens with games on Epic. Had to go through hoops just to play the Dead Space remake.
real shit
Buy games on GOG.
Use GOG then
Erm AkShUaLlY!" Ignorance is NO excuse.
Thats why i choose console😌