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The number of PC digital storefronts/launchers is getting out of hand

G

garath

Member
Anticipating Destiny 2 next week and thinking about getting Witcher 3 on sale, I noticed my games drive was getting pretty full. I am pretty good about purging my installed steam games periodically so I wasn't exactly sure what was filling up the drive. I went folder by folder looking for installed games to uninstall and what I ended up doing was finding all the various launchers and storefronts that weren't steam that had games installed:

Steam
Origin
Epic
Uplay
Bethesda (this was one I forgot about)
Battle.net
Gog galaxy

Then I recalled I had individual games installed from places like Gamersgate. Oy.

I'm sure there's others I'm even overlooking or forgetting about too.

I remember seeing a unified digital library thread. Time to go dig that up. We desperately need something like that.

Edit: I said storefronts but I really mean libraries locally on the PC. Actual digital storefronts are fine and good for competition. Some good points about that.
 
C

Conkerkid11

Member
garath said:
Anticipating Destiny 2 next week and thinking about getting Witcher 3 on sale, I noticed my games drive was getting pretty full. I am pretty good about purging my installed steam games periodically so I wasn't exactly sure what was filling up the drive. I went folder by folder looking for installed games to uninstall and what I ended up doing was finding all the various launchers and storefronts that weren't steam that had games installed:

Steam
Origin
Epic
Uplay
Bethesda (this was one I forgot about)
Battle.net
Gog galaxy

Then I recalled I had individual games installed from places like Gamersgate. Oy.

I'm sure there's others I'm even overlooking or forgetting about too.

I remember seeing a unified digital library thread. Time to go dig that up. We desperately need something like that.
Click to expand...
The only ones really big enough in that list are Steam, Origin, Uplay, and Battle.net.

Epic doesn't have many games, Bethesda still releases their games on other storefronts and doesn't require the launcher, and Gog is just an alternative to Steam.

And in the end, it's not that big a deal, because you just launch the one you want to play from. Almost all of them have integration with one-another, so all your friends are ported over in most cases. When a publisher's big enough, they want that extra 30% they'd be losing to the other guy. I don't see a problem with that so long as their client is good, and at the moment, all the clients are pretty great. They're all significantly better than Xbox Live and PSN, that's for sure.
 
R

RevenWolf

Member
Eventually someone will release a digital front in which the sole purpose is to organise and keep settings for the other launchers.

Of course though once that gets popular others will create their own and the circle of life will continue.
 
C

Conkerkid11

Member
TheChewyWaffles said:
Need a MoviesAnywhere-like service for this.
Click to expand...
The whole point of them doing this is so they make 100% of the movie from sales and microtransactions. This won't happen.

MoviesAnywhere is integrating things like Vudu, iTunes, and Google Play. Those services weren't created by people who produce movies.
 
A

Arulan

Member
I don't really think the number of clients is a problem. The problem however is useless clients by companies that believe a few exclusives is a good reason for someone to use their (client) software. Steam gives me many features and reasons to want to use their client. GOG is optional, but they do as well. Origin and Uplay I only use if I have to.

I welcome real competition.
 
N

Niceguydan8

Member
It's hard to blame publishers for not wanting to take a 30% cut off of their product when they could probably still sell to most of the consumers willing to buy their game and not have to worry about Steam getting a cut of their sale.
 
P

Pachael

Member
This is the result of an open platform where anybody can set up their own shop and client, and that's a great thing for competition.
 
F

FirmBizBws

Becomes baffled, curling up into a ball when confronted with three controller options.
It’s insane and I refuse to buy games that aren’t on GOG, steam, blizzard or uplay. Enough is enough. There’s no need.
 
G

GLAMr

Member
I have a Steam bias mainly because I'm a Linux user, and most of my friends use Steam. Even if we are paying an EA/Blizzard game, we organise it in Steam first.
 
Ivan

Ivan

Member
I agree...

It's really nice to have a choice instead of a monopoly, but it really sucks to have games and friends all over the place.

It's a big flaw to me.


And I even understand them. Who would want to give it's 30% to some other company instead of taking it (the big guys I mean)?

But we definitely need a solution.
 
P

Phatosaurus

Member
deadlock28 said:
OP you forgot the Windows St--- never mind carry on.
Click to expand...

I wish I didn't need the Windows store to play Forza. I'm all for competition between the stores, and certain stores hold their games back from other stores and that's all fine.

Except the Windows Store is awful to use, for many reasons (though at least I get amazing d/l speed though it).
 
A

amodelmerol

Member
Origin gives you a free game per month. Ubi gave free games on Christmas. Steam has early access and GOG runs awesome promotions.

Yes, they may be too many, but it's worth it
 
W

WillyFive

Member
This does not seem to be a problem. More choices, more competition. Only downside would be memorizing accounts, but hardly a big issue.
 
Q

Quadraphonic

Member
This is just like whining when there are competitors to Netflix.

Want to keep your prices down? Want to inspire competition? Want to have OPTIONS when purchasing games?

The answer to all of that should be yes.
 
F

Fularu

Banned
Soon enough expect most major publishers to have their own storefront

Why shouldn't they?

It has worked just fine for Blizzard and EA. No need to give Valve money "just because".
 
K

Kayant

Member
In my eyes the Storefront that are not there just because they don't want to give share their revenue with Steam are the problem. Anything else is largely "fine" because I can make a decision on what one I want based on things like price/features instead of being locked to having to only access it through a publisher launcher.
Phatosaurus said:
Competition is good.
Click to expand...
"Competition" in the storefront place with pubs isn't about actually competing with Steam or other storefronts. It's about not wanting to give Steam 30% of their revenue.

So for the most part "Competition" isn't really good and more of a needless annoyance having to create more accounts among other things.
 
R

RSchmitz

Member
I don't mind. As long as games aren't wrapped aroung nonsense like windows store games, every publisher should have their own to avoid the 30% cut.
 
A

axisofweevils

Holy crap! Today's real megaton is that more than two people can have the same first name.
I have all of those, also itch.io
But yeah, I often forget where a game I purchased is. Surprised nobody’s made an attempt to connect them all.
 
P

Phatosaurus

Member
Kayant said:
In my eyes the Storefront that are not there just because they don't want to give share their revenue with Steam are the problem. Anything else is largely "fine" because I can make a decision on what one I want based on things like price/features instead of being locked to having to only access it through a publisher launcher.

"Competition" in the storefront place with pubs isn't about actually competing with Steam or other storefronts. It's about not wanting to give Steam 30% of their revenue.

So for the most part "Competition" isn't really good and more of a needless annoyance having to create more accounts among other things.
Click to expand...

Competition is why these store fronts have incorporated refunds.
Competition is why Origin give games away for free.
Competition leads to a better end user experience overall, regardless of the inconvenience of multiple accounts,
 
G

garath

Member
Phatosaurus said:
Competition is why these store fronts have incorporated refunds.
Competition is why Origin give games away for free.
Competition leads to a better end user experience overall, regardless of the inconvenience of multiple accounts,
Click to expand...

I'm all for competition. More than happy to have multiple storefronts, but my struggle is really with the oddball launchers that hide their own games and the libraries. Someone commented that it's just going to continue and that's the real issue.

Mohasus said:
Hey OP, there is a menu on settings app/control panel that lists everything installed on your PC making things easier to uninstall.
Click to expand...

Lol. That's true. The purge process was a mix of going through folders, trolling the programs and features and browsing the launchers. Programs and features I'd messy though. The naming is all over the place, very few show the size of the program anymore and some require launching the library to uninstall.

I'll have to try to link more games to my steam library.
 
P

Phatosaurus

Member
garath said:
I'm all for competition. More than happy to have multiple storefronts, but my struggle is really with the oddball launchers that hide their own games and the libraries. Someone commented that it's just going to continue and that's the real issue.



Lol. That's true. The purge process was a mix of going through folders, trolling the programs and features and browsing the launchers. Programs and features I'd messy though. The naming is all over the place, very few show the size of the program anymore and some require launching the library to uninstall.

I'll have to try to link more games to my steam library.
Click to expand...

I just do this. Quick and easy access to all my launchers/games from the Start bar.

tjis.jpg
Click to expand...
 
K

Kayant

Member
Phatosaurus said:
Competition is why these store fronts have incorporated refunds.
Competition is why Origin give games away for free.
Competition leads to a better end user experience overall, regardless of the inconvenience of multiple accounts,
Click to expand...
You're right there I forgot about things like refunds happening because of origin iirc.

I should say am mostly fine with the existence of multiple launcher and account thanks to password managers i just we are getting to a tipping point where it gets really annoying and in the age of services getting comprised here and there that's why my grieve lies.

Edit -

EA is one of the better ones in that they offer third party games.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
I think it is overall good for the industry to have multiple platforms to buy games on. If a developer wants to do their own thing, then let them. I think most of these serve their own purpose and don't really overlap with each other. I mean, GOG Galaxy is pretty much optional at this point. Epic Game's Launcher also serves as a front end for their development tools. EA get's a lot of shit for Origin, but they have a pretty good rental system happening. Battle.net is really the oldest one of these clients and served as Blizzards online client.
 
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