Bethesda shutting down the Bethesda launcher and moving all games to Steam

[Uthan The Perverse]

Bethesda announced that they will be shutting down the Bethesda launcher in favour of Steam soon.

 

What do you guys think of this? Personally I am glad that the Fallout 4 Creation Kit will be on Steam.

[Monoman1]

About time.

Love to know how many people actually used it. Think I was forced to have a game or two on it. You just forget they exist. 

Another case of publishers greed backfiring. To be fair, steam having a de facto monopoly is wrong as well. 

 

Why don't all these competing publishers ditch their sporadic launchers, come together and finance a common platform to compete with steam. One that's actually good. You know, one with actual features...

 

My guess is they'll all be going on the MS store eventually.... At least MS seem somewhat more consumer friendly. Lately.

[Uthan The Perverse]

Microsoft themselves are moving their games to Steam. I think Steam's monopoly is fair since they are not actively hostile towards users and don't poach developers to release their games on the platform. Plus no other company supports development Linux as a gaming platform than Steam, for that I have mad respect for them as a Linux user myself.

[KoolHndLuke]

Steam is far from perfect, but they're good enough. Now if others like EA would follow suit.. 

[worik]

? That makes me wondering who is going to buy Steam. Soon.

[Monoman1]

18 minutes ago, Uthan The Perverse said:

Microsoft themselves are moving their games to Steam. I think Steam's monopoly is fair since they are not actively hostile towards users and don't poach developers to release their games on the platform. Plus no other company supports development Linux as a gaming platform than Steam, for that I have mad respect for them as a Linux user myself.

Monopolies are hardly ever a good thing. Competition is good. 

 

As consumers, we've only ever really known steam. There's nothing close really. Perhaps things could been even better now if there had been more competition early on? We don't know. 

 

Remember back when digital sales were being touted. "Cheaper products" they said. "No physical distribution costs" they said. Never came to anything for the consumer. I wonder where the savings went? Someone got it. 

 

And being asked to fork over 30% on steam would be a bitter pill for anyone to swallow. What does valve actually do for their 30%? It seems it's all just algorithms. I seem to remember reading somewhere that valve has the highest revenue to employee ratio in the world...

 

Actually GOG is pretty good. Allows you to bundle Uplay, origin, steam & epic in one launcher. Must try to use it more. Selection on it's store however is kind of lacking. 

[Grey Cloud]

Steam and all the others are just parasites. They add nothing to computer games and rely on user ignorance to exist. Nanny-state meets gaming.

Every capitalist business wants to control its consumer base in order to squeeze every last penny out of it.

[toynbeeidea]

I get all of my games from gog.

[Decèdere]

Don't know about you guys, but my desktop has always made a pretty reliable launcher. Steam and other launchers have always been more like DRM to me than a useful feature I need or want on my computer. But okay, I guess that's just PC gaming now.

[Popo07]

 One of my main problems with steam is ,,if I launch a game thru steam I shouldnt have to run or sign into any other accounts/launchers .Im looking at you EA and UBIsoft.

[Monoman1]

38 minutes ago, Popo07 said:

 One of my main problems with steam is ,,if I launch a game thru steam I shouldnt have to run or sign into any other accounts/launchers .Im looking at you EA and UBIsoft.

The cynic in me thinks that's deliberate on the part of EA and Ubisoft...

I'm sure steam would love to have seamless third party launches. 

[worik]

1 hour ago, toynbeeidea said:

I get all of my games from gog.

I would, too. If Skyrim etc... would be available there.

[TheWilloughbian]

5 hours ago, Uthan The Perverse said:

What do you guys think of this? Personally I am glad that the Fallout 4 Creation Kit will be on Steam.

 

Actually, in spite of many inquiries about where the CK will be available that have yet to answer the question.  They just stonewall and link to the FAQ that has no information about it.  I think they're up to something and Microsoft is making its play.

 

sorry about all the ads in the second link but this is where all the hate for MS pretty much started.

 

United States v. Microsoft Corp. - Wikipedia

 

Microsoft Accused Of Antitrust Violations Justice Department Asks Federal Court To Fine Software Giant $1 Million A Day | The Spokesman-Review

 

Microsoft paid the fine for a month before they finally caved

[Uthan The Perverse]

4 hours ago, Monoman1 said:

Monopolies are hardly ever a good thing. Competition is good. 

 

As consumers, we've only ever really known steam. There's nothing close really. Perhaps things could been even better now if there had been more competition early on? We don't know. 

 

Remember back when digital sales were being touted. "Cheaper products" they said. "No physical distribution costs" they said. Never came to anything for the consumer. I wonder where the savings went? Someone got it. 

 

And being asked to fork over 30% on steam would be a bitter pill for anyone to swallow. What does valve actually do for their 30%? It seems it's all just algorithms. I seem to remember reading somewhere that valve has the highest revenue to employee ratio in the world...

 

Actually GOG is pretty good. Allows you to bundle Uplay, origin, steam & epic in one launcher. Must try to use it more. Selection on it's store however is kind of lacking. 

Agreed. But then again, as consumers it's not really much of our concern. We must buy from where we think we get the best value. And it's not like Steam does not have competition, there's GOG, Uplay, Origin, Epic, etc. Just that there aren't really any competitors that provide Steam's level of features. The added Linux support basically cements the loyalty of the Linux community.

 

Steam is far from perfect, but being much more feature complete, they have set a benchmark for what other launchers should aspire to be.

1 hour ago, TheWilloughbian said:

 

Actually, in spite of many inquiries about where the CK will be available that have yet to answer the question.  They just stonewall and link to the FAQ that has no information about it.  I think they're up to something and Microsoft is making its play.

 

sorry about all the ads in the second link but this is where all the hate for MS pretty much started.

 

United States v. Microsoft Corp. - Wikipedia

 

Microsoft Accused Of Antitrust Violations Justice Department Asks Federal Court To Fine Software Giant $1 Million A Day | The Spokesman-Review

 

Microsoft paid the fine for a month before they finally caved

I will always doubt Microsoft for having an ulterior motive. That's why I use Linux full time and only use Windows for games that I cannot run on Linux yet.

[Monoman1]

35 minutes ago, Uthan The Perverse said:

Agreed. But then again, as consumers it's not really much of our concern.

If this is regarding steams 30% cut then yes. Yes it is our concern. Perhaps not directly, but indirectly. 

 

Perhaps if publishers were getting charged less there'd be less 'need' for all this microtransaction, lootboxes & now NFT horse shit distorting the final product. These days modern games are more like business models masquerading as games than actual games. Some masquerading more poorly than others. The general game design seems to be: 

1. Come up with a business model. 

2. Build a game around said model. 

 

This is rarely going to turn into a good game because of the influence of the business model has on gameplay. 

 

I say less 'need' because of course some publishers are always going to want to milk every last penny out of the customer. 

[Hex Bolt]

Epic Games competes with Steam, charging developers 12% compared to Steam's 30%.  Unfortunately, the Epic Games launcher doesn't have many features, and many games are exclusively on Steam.  I do go to Epic each week to check their weekly free game offering, but sadly, I still buy almost everything through Steam.

[landess]

I bought a couple games from Steam way back when and was very nervous about the future availability of those games. Years later and I realized I'll probably be dead before Steam is so I can 'live' with that.

[RitualClarity]

4 hours ago, Popo07 said:

 One of my main problems with steam is ,,if I launch a game thru steam I shouldnt have to run or sign into any other accounts/launchers .Im looking at you EA and UBIsoft.

A person should be able to use their launcher of choice without any issues. Once assigned to a company (the company you bought it from) it should work through their log on and launcher. No need to do added passwords etc.

 

Also, the customer should be able to buy from any of their preferred companies. GOG, EA, Steam. There is no reason they can't other than the selling company wanting to control their product sales and get the added info of use and such. Even then, statistics can be gained on the back end from the companies that are selling the game. I can't see it being that difficult. In fact, it might be even better if that agreed upon info is done this way then the company can see all the statistics not just their own.

 

Having to have multiple companies to deal with for various games just plain sucks.  Only benefit is if you mod etc. you can buy a game from two different companies and have different setups for your gaming pleasure. you know... being members here on LL.

[HentaiGnome]

53 minutes ago, landess said:

I bought a couple games from Steam way back when and was very nervous about the future availability of those games. Years later and I realized I'll probably be dead before Steam is so I can 'live' with that.

 

Lol same here. And now I've pretty much used Steam as my main platform for buying PC games, so much so that it ANNOYS me if I have to get something from Epic Games or some other platform due to exclusivity. Thank God most of those are only timed exclusives, but games like GTA Trilogy Remaster? Yeah, no thanks Rockstar, unless you release that on Steam you're not getting my money lmao.

[nIn nIn nIn]

I remember gaming before Steam. Games were released "as is", if you were lucky they would do ONE patch, but you had to contact the publisher and wait for them to MAIL out a disk (floppy or cd). Then there was the DRM - oh god, please no. Some copy protection software actually bricked hardware when installed. I experienced that first hand - starforce (forever nicknamed starfuck) broke dvd writers. If you wanted to write a cd or dvd you had to uninstall the game (GT Legends) and use a tool to remove starforce, and when that tool failed, as it inevitable did, your only option was to reformat your C drive and reinstall windows from scratch. Fact.

 

Steam is a wonderful service. No more fucking invasive hardware level DRM.

 

Steam is a game changer, it revolutionised game distribution and support. Their 30% fee is fair, as it covers global distribution and market reach. Valve operates a large number of extremely powerful server farms all around the globe, with the bandwidth to ensure everyone gets their maximum download speeds their individual internet connection can give them. Think about what that must cost.

 

My ISP gives me 100 mbps download capability. Steam feeds me 11 to 12 MB per second.

 

 

[TheWilloughbian]

14 minutes ago, nIn nIn nIn said:

I remember gaming before Steam. Games were released "as is", if you were lucky they would do ONE patch, but you had to contact the publisher and wait for them to MAIL out a disk (floppy or cd). Then there was the DRM - oh god, please no. Some copy protection software actually bricked hardware when installed. I experienced that first hand - starforce (forever nicknamed starfuck) broke dvd writers. If you wanted to write a cd or dvd you had to uninstall the game (GT Legends) and use a tool to remove starforce, and when that tool failed, as it inevitable did, your only option was to reformat your C drive and reinstall windows from scratch. Fact.

 

Steam is a wonderful service. No more fucking invasive hardware level DRM.

 

Steam is a game changer, it revolutionised game distribution and support. Their 30% fee is fair, as it covers global distribution and market reach. Valve operates a large number of extremely powerful server farms all around the globe, with the bandwidth to ensure everyone gets their maximum download speeds their individual internet connection can give them. Think about what that must cost.

 

My ISP gives me 100 mbps download capability. Steam feeds me 11 to 12 MB per second.

 

 

 

Steam was also the first to try pushing for paid game mods and can burn in hell. Only reason it's on my machine is I can't play the games I want without it.

 

edit: well ... maybe not the first but just the same.

they can take their forced updates and stick them.

 

[jxm]

10 hours ago, Monoman1 said:

About time.

Love to know how many people actually used it. Think I was forced to have a game or two on it. You just forget they exist. 

Another case of publishers greed backfiring. To be fair, steam having a de facto monopoly is wrong as well. 

 

Why don't all these competing publishers ditch their sporadic launchers, come together and finance a common platform to compete with steam. One that's actually good. You know, one with actual features...

 

My guess is they'll all be going on the MS store eventually.... At least MS seem somewhat more consumer friendly. Lately.

 

Me ... bought Doom Eternal on GreenManGaming....and realized then it was a Beth-Key, not for Steam ... hm...the only game I ever used on that launcher. And the last it seems,,,well, one launcher less to worry about...

[Grey Cloud]

7 hours ago, TheWilloughbian said:

 

Actually, in spite of many inquiries about where the CK will be available that have yet to answer the question.  They just stonewall and link to the FAQ that has no information about it.  I think they're up to something and Microsoft is making its play.

 

sorry about all the ads in the second link but this is where all the hate for MS pretty much started.

 

United States v. Microsoft Corp. - Wikipedia

 

Microsoft Accused Of Antitrust Violations Justice Department Asks Federal Court To Fine Software Giant $1 Million A Day | The Spokesman-Review

 

Microsoft paid the fine for a month before they finally caved

I'm old enough to remember that Intel were and are just as bad as Microsoft ever were/are. Then there is/was Steve "Mr Monopoly" Jobs and those nice people over at Apple.

[27X]

11 hours ago, worik said:

? That makes me wondering who is going to buy Steam. Soon.

 

No one. Steam is a privately held company, with two people with the rights. One of those people has publicly stated the company will never go public as long as the current management team is in place.

 

Can't sell what isn't for sale.

10 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

user ignorance

 

For someone that can't even understand the basics of how  how asset virtualization works that is fucking blood diamond rich

 

2 hours ago, TheWilloughbian said:

paid game mods

 

Not even kind of. As stated, Nexus has attempted what they succeeded in doing last year three times previous. DooM had paid mods, both third party corporate and private.

 

[Windu191]

Are there any games on the Bethesda Launcher that aren't on Steam already?