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[JohnnyFootball]

The thing everyone should fear is Microsoft making their own launcher/store and making it such that games cannot be played in windows without running it through the Windows Store. That probably cant happen due to legal issues.

 

[Alexios]

Making it exclusive to a launcher would be the monopoly. It should be on all of them and let the gamers decide

But tons of games are on Steam only as of now (even if they went there for different reasons) so protest about that before the few that are going to Epic?

 

[Makariel]

The thing everyone should fear is Microsoft making their own launcher/store and making it such that games cannot be played in windows without running it through the Windows Store. That probably cant happen due to legal issues.

I'm pretty sure that Microsoft still remembers the EU punching them over the Internet Explorer. That would simply not fly in Europe.

 

[AndrewRyan]

I will really feel bad for the gamers that will eventually lose access to purchased titles when these individual launchers begin to fail (and be discontinued).

Yep. Lost my digital games when GameFly Digital decided their store wasn't profitable enough anymore and shut down everything. They 'transferred' my rights to a company called Direct2Drive but the files you download from them are corrupted and they ignore all support requests.

Ubisoft is doing it right, they have their own client but also sell their games on Origin and Steam and wherever.

I hate this and haven't bought a uPlay PC game in years because of it. At least EA makes it clear you have to use their launcher/DRM to get your games but uPlay makes it seem like it's a Steam game but then sneaks in their crappy launcher. Even for games that didn't have it originally like Rayman.

 

[Alexios]

But if you buy games that use Steam elsewhere like retail you need to use the Steam client then. It's just how stuff works with all the expected online features these days. If Ubi games used Steam features instead of their own servers for match making and anti cheat and whatever, then they'd have to have Steam even when they sold them on Origin and their own store, same situation just with the client you like. Well, it's either that or make it so ubi store uses uplay and can only play with others on ubi store, Steam uses Steam and can only play with Steam users, Origin and so on, one game, 3-4 (add gog) 5 (add Epic) and so on fragmented userbases. Not that developers would ever wanna do all the work of setting up a different back end for the game for each platform to begin with.

 

[Gargus]

Blizzard, steam, gog launchers are all I use or will ever bother with. I'll play a game on my ps4 instead of getting tied up in someone else's store front.

 

[Optimus Lime]

It's been interesting reading through all of this controversy over the last few days. I think that one of the things that's bothering me about this new direction in PC gaming is that not only are we going to be seeing the fragmentation of people's libraries, but we're going to be seeing a fragmentation of people's rights. The right to a refund, for whatever reason, is not going to be consistent between platforms, and PC users are going to have to keep a running tally of where they can get refunds, in which circumstances, how much playtime, etc. People found this out the hard way when trying to refund Fallout 76 through Bethesda - the deal they offer just isn't the same as the one offered by Steam or Origin. And, as Steam's power wanes, they'll be able to set their own T&C's that benefit themselves. On top of that is the question of things like aftermarket key sales, and multi-region sales - they'll all have their own agendas and end user arrangements, and I find it highly doubtful that there will be consistency between storefronts.

It might seem a little Chicken Little, and I get the discomfort people have with Steam's market power. But, there are big questions that this kind of fragmentation is going to throw up, and I don't think it's going to be as simple as 'more choice = good' versus 'one library = good'.

 

[RokkanStoned]

Tons of games I've avoided because they try to make my go to another storefront that I'm not interested in. The very few that are of enough interest for me to do so are so few (of the current storefronts Bethesda with TESVI is the only one I can think of that's big enough for me to buy it at a non-Steam storefront, and even then I might just buy it for PS5/XBOXTWO in spite), that I can't really see the benefit in regards to the overall PC community. One would hope for even lower prices, but somehow I doubt that's a thing and only a slightly lower price won't offset the convenience of Steam and having everything in one storefront.

Rage 2 is certainly not a game I'm going to feel a loss by not having available at the storefronts I use. It just makes any interest I'd possibly have for it twindle further away and make me avoid impulse buying it.

Currently it's Steam and GoG and console-based storefronts like eShop and PS Store that I'm using.

 

[Alexios]

I think that one of the things that's bothering me about this new direction in PC gaming

It's not a new direction.

Steam itself started as one option to sell your game online. It became the dominant for its features, mostly making it so easy for both sides of the business, but far from the only one.

Other options popped up all the time. Some did well others died off. Looks like Epic will be among the former.

How long until Kickstarter and the like get in on the fun? They're already treated as pre-order grounds for many projects, why wouldn't they wanna sell the final product on a store also? Curious.

 

[LordPezix]

Really?

I played the first one and I would've played this one but I am not downloading another launcher.

This is Rage 2 we are talking about. This game hardly has the interest or following to illicit a restrictive launch.

Games like Zelda, God of War, and Red Dead are ones that can justify an exclusive launcher.

Sorry to say but I think they just shot themselves in the foot.

Rage 2 is certainly not a game I'm going to feel a loss by not having available at the storefronts I use. It just makes any interest I'd possibly have for it twindle further away and make me avoid impulse buying it.

Currently it's Steam and GoG and console-based storefronts like eShop and PS Store that I'm using.

Agreed

 

[Optimus Lime]

It's not a new direction.

Steam itself started as one option to sell your game online. It became the dominant for its features, mostly making it so easy for both sides of the business, but far from the only one.

No, I think that contextually, it is.

Steam started as one option to sell Valve games online. Steam launched in 2003, and didn't start offering third party titles until 2005. It did not invent digital game sales, and I never claimed that it did. Steam was initially a way for Valve to control patches and upgrades without the mess of manual patching or services like Gamespy. Post 2005, Steam's digital distribution competitors died off for many reasons, a lot of which - as you correctly point out - had to do with Steam's evolving feature set.

It isn't 2003 anymore, though, and these are new forms of market disruption, that are less about the creation of unique services, and more about licensing arrangements. Right now, Epic's focus on leveraging increased royalty rates in order to lock down platform exclusivity for indie games is a new development, and it is one worth paying attention to. It also highlights the ways that Steam has lost it's way in the last few years.

 

[Filben]

Wanted to play it. But whatever. Plenty of other games to play and there's no way I'm ever going to install that god-awful, shitty and ridiculous piece of software crap again – or support devs and publishers trying to advocate those launchers. This, if not properly developed, needs to be eradicated from this planet. RAGE 2, on the other hand, is just a video game I can gladly skip.

 

[TheShadowLord]

I have bigger issues of creating so many accounts while remembering every password than having multiple launchers. Just let in me sign with my Gmail account.

 

[Mattyp]

People obviously weren't around for the first years of steam, it was absolute garage but a lot here are talking like the software was the 2nd coming of christ.

 

[tomiguelk]

I use Steam and to a lesser level GOG. If I really want to play something I might use other launchers, but for impulse buys, or just to get something I won't play right away, Steam is the only one I'll use. And I believe that is the best advantage steam has for developers. At least for now most people won't browse Bethesda store or Epic store looking for something interesting they might play. They'll use it if they know something they want is only there. I think for that reason alone an indie not launching on steam is most certainly a mistake. Not to mention that developers can create keys and sell them anywhere they like, for the percentage they want, and still use steam's infrastructure.

 

[Kadayi]

I have bigger issues of creating so many accounts while remembering every password than having multiple launchers. Just let in me sign with my Gmail account.

Shadow get a password manager like Last pass. I've been using it for the last few years and find it's great. Pretty much all my passwords are randomly generated. No repeats etc

 

[AV]

Tried Rage 1 for the first time last night. Couldn't last more than an hour. It was outdone in every conceivable way by Borderlands, a game that already existed at that time.

 

[Gamezone]

Valve`s 30% might be the industry standard, but it`s probably hard to maintain on PC as an open platform. Xbox, Nintendo and Playstation aren`t open platform. If publishers want their games on their system, they have to give up those 30%, or develop another console. On PC it`s much easier for publishers to just create their own store. It`s not fun, and I think this will harm PC gaming in the long run.

 

[KonradLaw]

Rage 2 will probably do fine even there, but I sure hope this isn't the practice for all Bethesda titles. Games made by Arkane or the next Evil Within had enough trouble attracting big audiences without such crippling moves.

 

[KonradLaw]

Tried Rage 1 for the first time last night. Couldn't last more than an hour. It was outdone in every conceivable way by Borderlands, a game that already existed at that time.

except gunplay , which sucks in Borderlands.
But Rage was dissapoiting indeed. And the second half of the game was far worse than first one.
With Rage 2 though, it's Just Cause devs who are making the bulk of the game. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing.