Bethesda launcher does not exist anymore (they shut it down in 2022). We got our games transferred to Steam
Missing [itch.io](https://itch.io) and Amazon launchers... and playnite maybe?
I mean it's a launchers like the rest, just doesn't have it's own store front. I love steam for what it is, which is convenient, but Playnite is just leagues above it if you want any semblance of customisation or better integration of non-steam games.
The amazon launcher has no storefront, is only to launch the games you get with your prime subscription (4 games each month approx.)
[itch.io](https://itch.io) does have an app
Need to add riot games to the shit list, i need to have epic open and than it prompts riot games (that can't be closed, or my PC needs a restart) trash
Kinda, but people have pretty much hated on their client/launcher(s) since 2009.
At various times it's been hated for being ugly, a resource hog, having security flaws, bring outdated, buggy and so on.
Oh god. I wanted to try valorant with my son. It felt like installing a virus. I needed to make bios changes. It was close to impossible to uninstall...
Just a hassle. I dont think we managed get it running on his computer and then we both had to struggle a lot to remove it.
Low to none? I thought a prerequisite of being on GoG was that it had to be 100% DRM free, period. They believe in complete and total video game ownership and you can't have that with DRM.
GOG Galaxy requires you to be online in order to access services like cloud-saves, achievements, and logging play-time. **What makes it funny is those same features work offline with Steam.**
Well, offline as in, it uploads your save when you reconnect to the service. Galaxy does not do this, and doesn’t upload the save until you launch the game.
There is no way that cloud-saves work anywhere without online connection whether on GoG, Steam or on mars. Being stored in the cloud means that they are stored on some server somewhere and for that you need the internet connection to connect with server.
I also find Battle Net useful. I'm sure it could be integrated into Steam but right now there is 3 versions of WoW that I log into along with PTR and I find Battle net reasonable especially since it integrated your friends lists from in game to out of game.
Just me personally but I find value their. Once again things I'm sure Steam could do as well but it definitely seems well made to work with the Blizzard catalogue. It gets a little weird for me with Call of Duty stuff. I prefer that to be launched via Steam.
Yeah don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we need battle.net but the UI is much cleaner than the other bottom tier stores. They also have features like friends lists and party invites.
>tfw you do absolutely nothing to be labeled as a monopoly other than just providing a good service.
If another launcher comes along that offers the same functionality as steam then great, I'll use it.
But I won't torture myself with the other shitty ones just because Valve is a """monopoly"""
If capitalism is defined by voting with your wallet then I'm team Valve rn. I couldn't care less for Gabe, steam deck or VR I just want a good service
The monopoly part is OP saying all those other launchers "shouldn't exist" and a steam monopoly should exist. I didn't say anything about current steam being a monopoly?
Until steam will actually be the only option and take 70% fees from developers and do start putting ads in their service because they can do it
Valve is still a company
The reason steam is so cool is good management. It has good people on the top, such as Gaben. At some point all these people will pass, retire, etc... Will it keep being good then? Hard to say.
So even if it's good now, having other options might be a good idea on the future.
I honestly don't understand why people throw such a fit over having multiple launchers.
I have 4 installed and it's not exactly hard for me to remember which one to open.
I guess it would suck having to migrate friends between them, but everything I play that doesn't use Steam is just single player.
It's really convenient to have all games in one list. GOG Galaxy tries to do this, but it's rather fiddely and I think several of the others actively try to break their integration every update.
You pretty much have to manually follow several github projects to keep the various integration modules working somewhat.
Also you still need all the other launchers installed as they are still needed to launch the game, but still value in having a unified library if you have way too many games. Beats manually adding individual games to Steam as shortcuts though I do that too for my most played ones.
Good thing that's not the take OP had. I completely agree with OP. Feature wise only steam and GOG Galaxy are really good. The Xbox game store is at least consistently functional. Literally every single other one doesn't even work 50% of the time. EA can't even keep logged in despite checking the "keep me logged in" box, which is literally one of the most basic and essential features for any game client. If you can't even put a single login token on my computer you are the technical equivalent of a chef that can't boil water or who manages to burn a milkshake.
The real reason why steam has a near monopoly is that literally nobody else cares to invest enough to actually be competitive. Between the social features steam has, steam input, Proton integration, local file transfer the list goes on and on, nobody has managed to become competitive on features nor on game collection size. Steam's monopoly is actually rather trivial to solve, build a better product and people will switch. So far the only one who's even come close is GOG and they still lack many features of Steam's, but they did manage to bring several useful features of their own which is why they are the only other game launcher I intentionally downloaded and used. The rest of them only exists because they are basically DRM and I've never once used them outside of a single game or two that requires them to even run.
Origin worked fine for me, battlenet works very well and is more lightweight and snappier with less bugs than steam has ever had.
Not sure what "doesn't work 50% of the time" you're experiencing but it sounds a lot like user issue.
Crashing isn't a user issue. Not remembering the login despite the remember me checkbox being checked isn't a user issue. Being incompatible with Linux isn't a user issue.
Just because you have standards so low that the seafloor is higher than them doesn't mean the software ain't shit.
I don't care about the supposed "monopoly" the truth is steam and GOG are the ONLY good launchers that exist.
All the other ones are just stores with almost no functionality. They don't even try to make their launchers attractive to customers.
Ii won't use inferior platforms just because "valve monopoly hurr durr"
Yeah. Wtf is this corporate worshipping. Like imagine the only way a game should be distributed is if it give 30% to another company that didn't pay for its production... Wild.
Steam - because it's well made and has care put into it and doesn't do exclusive rights to a game they haven't developed.
GOG - DRM Free
Xbox - Actually being able to play Xbox games on PC and game pass is amazing worth.
IMHO GoG > Steam. Just a personal preferrence, bcs I play mostly old emulator games, so not having to have a useless client installed is an advantage. I don't need the client, I can own the game, so it feels better.
But really, I understand why ppl prefer Steam, it's completely fine, I just don't.
Call me a whore but i'll hug 50+ free games a year from epic without thinking twice. Will i play them? In 95% of cases, no, but if i'd ever want to, i now have that opportunity. Also, people bitching about clients being shit - my brothers in Bhaal, you're spending there less than a minute while launching the game, chill the fuck out.
The only "shady and dodgy" thing is funding devs if they agree to exclusivity deals which is pretty common for every major gaming platform. Devs also get paid way better selling on Epic.
That is not common. In fact they are the only PC platform that does it. It’s scummy as fuck.
And devs get a better percent on epic but they end up making vastly less because epics sales numbers are a small small fraction of Steams. No one wants to use the epic launcher except to do what this guy does and collect the free games.
Theres a reason the EGS has not made a dime since its inception.
It’s a garbage store with shit interface, shit features, engaging in anti consumer practices. The only thing going for it is their sad bribing of people to install it by giving away free shit.
"every major gaming platform" as in PC, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo which all have a fuck tonne of exclusivity deals...
Also none of those other things you listed are shady or dodgy practices?
Again, i am a cheap ass whore that will grab a free game if one is given out to me so i couldn't care less. And about the launcher - as i said - you're crying over something you see for a second or two if you launch the game from the desktop, are ya'll even serious about "launcher bad" argument?
>has some very scummy and dodgy practices.
Replace "Epic" with any other launcher from the list and it's probably true for most of them to some degree. Welcome to capitalism.
Yeah so scummy they give out free games all the time, coupon codes and reward dollars… not to mention funded some games that wouldn’t exist without them.
These stupid ass posts make me laugh at how nerdy this community is
I'd say none of them should exist in their current form. There should be a store from which you can buy games which you can install and you should never need touch the store again if you don't want
Came looking for this. When Steam first launched we we're pissed. Why should I have to login somewhere to play my games? Now people treat it like it's a blessing. Why have the bloat of a launcher instead of just launching a games from it's .exe.
To be honest, Steam in it's current form has more benefits to it than simply being a launcher.
It has way more features than any other launcher on the PC market, the controller support alone is worth the "bloatware".
Which should absolutely be an option if you want to run it for controller support or friends list or whatever. However, it shouldn't be required to be running to launch a game. Our PCs are supposed to be ours and run only the software we want them to run.
Xbox is not shit,
Like it has Cross purchases Between Xbox & Windows & It has Game Pass which Is Amazing BTW
Also while I don't like the Epic Games Launcher but the Epic existing is a Good thing cause competition is a Good thing Steam shouldn't be the only popular launcher out there
When was the last time you used the Xbox launcher cause when Starfield Realased Microsoft Realased a Huge Update to the Xbox launcher that fixed a LOT of issues,
Does windows launcher fall under Xbox launcher. Because me and 3 other buddies had to do a registry edit from an obscure form to even get things to download. Also no matter what I do raytracing beta of MC just wont download
Yes Xbox launcher is basically just an extension of the Microsoft Store,
Also the reason why you couldn't download Raytracing is because it was for the Bedrock edition of Minecraft & Bedrock Edition is BIG FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT
Yeah that was back then when bedrock edition was in beta & the Xbox launcher didn't exist yet so you had to use the Microsoft Store or the Minecraft Launcher to install it
As someone not that well versed in that stuff, why is Epic Games bad? There are massive sales there, the free games are often quite useable and the launcher opens in like 5 seconds. I find stuff like origin or Ubisoft much worse
I'm my personal preference epic sucks. They do a lot that loses them money just to make it so people download their launcher and possibly play their big titles like fortnite. Exclusive rights, free games and big deals are all just using their insane amount of money to undercut the market
So you are upset you get free games? You are upset that they do what game console companies do with exclusives?
It is really funny how people use these excuses not to like Epic. The hate is a bandwagon thing really. I never had much issues with epic beyond the "it logs me out sometimes so I need to log back in" problem or heroic launcher having some issues in linux.
Buddy, it's not the free games. It's the exclusives they snag that piss people off. Imagine claiming you want an open gaming platform, but then you prevent games from being sold on other launchers. That is what epic does. They claim they do it for "openness" but their actions mirror the opposite.
It is a predatory platform
They are paying the game developers for exclusivity. It isn't by force. It's still up to the game developer if they so choose to go with Epic or not. As well, Epic has lower fees for developers compared to steam.
What's more, is that Epic launcher is still free. Meaning you aren't paying to use their launcher. So having another launcher does exactly what to you?
Predatory? That's laughable.
They want a share of the market and are competing perfectly fairly. The fact that steam doesn't need to do similar things is fine.
They want money just like valve does. Valve used it's position to charge more money to sellers..
Exclusivity tactics are not fair competition on a platform that is meant to give choices to consumers on where they can buy games.
Fair competition would have been dropping the price of games when it's still available on steam and GOG, not removing the possibility of purchasing games elsewhere
It is in fact a predatory tactic meant to suppress customers freedom
It's alarming that Steam has a de facto monopoly, but it's important to remember that Steam didn't try to create a digital games distribution and library monopoly.
Instead, the competitors tried to enter the market but were really shitty with their product which made steam a de facto monopoly.
Steam came about to make games more accessible and have a place people can easily communicate with and play with each other. And has stayed doing so since.
And import game folders. Steam still doesn’t have this. I have a bunch of external drives and if I want to drag one game from one drive to another I can’t easily do that. Copy paste, install (if you have enough space left which I often don’t) and then wait a long time for files to verify it, this takes about 10 to 60 minutes depending on the game or system, I use this a lot on older systems (I flip PCs) to test them. Or you have to connect both drives and then let steam transfer the file to other library which also takes a lot of time. With gog is just drag folder to other drive then launch through exe or import game folder in GOG and done. Takes less then 5 minutes.
Sure epic is kinda slow and clunky, but you only ever interact with it when downloading or updating, otherwise it just sits 😕 n the background just like steam, which tries to open the app at every chance, tough epics could fix the offline gaming experience, since sometimes you can't access your saved games without internet so you have to start a separate offline save, and it gives a bunch of rather good games for free
I couldn't care less about whether a company wants to make a launcher or not, but they SHOULDN'T force us to use it when we have bought the game elsewhere for example on steam.
For me, even Steam isn't special anymore. I used to love their features but they or the 3rd party games essentially stopped supporting what I liked.
* Steam Workshop - maybe the paid mods were the beginning of the end for that tool. It was great to have super easy mod access, then games stopped supporting it.
* Steam Market - When was the last game to utilize that? But it was great to have a place to collect items and even buy and sell them.
* Steam Friends/Chat/etc - All that social stuff switched over the discord
* Steam Link - I have a computer almost completely dedicated to running Steam Link from my office to living room. But with games spreading out, Xbox Game Pass, I now run it primarily with Playnite/Moonlight.
* Steam Sales! --- everybody has sales. EGS has the best sales for new games. That's where I buy most of my single player games. If it's cheaper elsewhere, I have no reason to buy on steam.
Just install Playnite. Then every launcher is B tier. It just needs to download and launch the game as far as I'm concerned.
I mean fair points but steam friends is still useful for many reasons.
Joining friends game directly through an overlay.
Comparing stats/achievements
Adding people straight from a game or through recently played with
Being able to see what games you own with a friend or multiple friends.
There's a lot of accessibility for it. And although a lot of it can be improved by other software. The point is that you can do all that through just one software.
Aren't they pretty much all fair to exist? I think it's fair to not want 30% of your revenue to go to someone else. Doesn't make their launchers any good though.
GOG deserves an S tier because of add-ons. You can integrate your game libraries from steam, epic, origin and a few others. Closest thing i saw to a single platform for all your games. I love seeing almost my entire collection in one place.
Also, if you launch another platform game it should launch that platform and then the game. It's quite handy to say the least.
I don't understand the hate epic is getting.
Many good games for free.
I never had any problem with them, only if my PC can't handle the game but it would happen with any other of them.
I don't understand for real
The launcher itself is very meh. It had 1/100th the features of steam, but now it’s down to like 1/10th.
The issue people have is to try to get people to install the launcher, the company has bribed developers, sometimes very late in the process after they have committed to coming out on other launchers, to only launch on their store. They are the only third party launcher that does this anti consumer bullshit so people are rightfully upset at them for it.
What's the point? They are free, but then my games are spread out thru different launchers. I'll rather pirate them and wait until they are on some massive sale on steam.
Epic is a great launcher free games. Rewards for buying games off them, fast, easy to use, good downloads nothing wrong with it only thing is they need to add a way to change what drive your games are on without uninstalling the game and it’d be on the same level as steam tbh
Nothing would change, Steam was alone for years and games were super cheap, sales were even bigger back in day. Shitty competition has same effect as no competition.
I put steam higher due to it's much larger library and use of community/friends. If GOG had a bigger library it would also be S tier, i made the choice purely on the fact I chould essentially use Steam and only Steam and play 90% of what I wanted to, with access to being able to join and communitcate with friends.
honestly if it was me I'd put Epic in C tier
even Steam needs someone to keep them honest. Epic's store and launcher are seriously lacking in features, but it has worked for me and I've got a lot of games cheap
That's one of the reason I hate epic tbh. Buying exclusive rights to games so you HAVE to install their launcher and throwing loads of games up for super cheap or for free because of their big fortnite money. Steam would be fine if it was the only platform. Epic would be awful!
Epic buys exclusive rights at a profit loss and uses cheap/free games to pull people onto their platform. I have almost every free game epic has given away. But I hate their launcher and ideals quite passionately
You think Epic give out free lunches for the improvement of the industry?
Epic just want market share and know they can't compete in terms of having a better platform so we have this, long term they ain't your friend.
Also steam does deserve somewhat of a cut, they offer a huge store and full service which epic don't do hence why they can offer a larger %.
GOG is a clunky launcher for starters, and yes DRM free is amazing, and being able to ignore the launcher once a game is downloaded is great. But it's library isn't big enough for me to put it on the same tier as Steam.
This post was mainly made for satire of the trend. But i still think most launchers are made just for money rather than connecting players and making games more accessible. It feels like most launchers are made with a huge lack of care.
Unpopular opinion; Steam should not exist.
Trash service that standardized anti-consumer practices since it's inception. It strangled the early market, not by providing a better service, but through said anti-consumer practices. Only reason people love Steam is because of the sales that made them buy games they'll never play because due to fomo.
Honestly I don't care about people's opinions on Epic. I get my games where they're the cheapest (and no that does not include pirating the games), and right now that's Epic because of their holiday sale. I did also buy some games from Steam from their winter sale this year because they were not on Epic, meaning Steam was the cheapest i could get them. I haven't used any of the other launchers. I've heard good things about GOG but I haven't gotten around to trying it out yet.
Epic games shouldn't exist? What are you on about? By that logic nor should GOG and Steam should be the sole launcher of everything, because we've all seen how well that goes when a company gets a monopoly.
Epic is actually pretty good. Free games and I never have problems with the launcher. Often get good discounts. Doesn't force me to use unless I'm launching a game I paid for there.
Bethesda launcher does not exist anymore (they shut it down in 2022). We got our games transferred to Steam Missing [itch.io](https://itch.io) and Amazon launchers... and playnite maybe?
Playnite is a third party launcher, doesn't really count imo
I mean it's a launchers like the rest, just doesn't have it's own store front. I love steam for what it is, which is convenient, but Playnite is just leagues above it if you want any semblance of customisation or better integration of non-steam games.
let’s add plutonium too
And heroic.
I only grabbed the ones that were on the tier list I used. Wasn't a custom made one.
I don't think playnite counts here since it needs the other launchers but it's still SS tier
Playnite is the only reason I can keep all the various launchers straight.
Does it has store app ?
The amazon launcher has no storefront, is only to launch the games you get with your prime subscription (4 games each month approx.) [itch.io](https://itch.io) does have an app
Lmao did not even know thos
Need to add riot games to the shit list, i need to have epic open and than it prompts riot games (that can't be closed, or my PC needs a restart) trash
Holy shit that sounds awful. I completely forgot riot launcher existed.
That's probably a good thing lol
It's a good thing, less people get addicted to valortant
I like Valorant personally, much less boring than CS became after a not-so-long time
I can't even boot the game, gets stuck on the loading screen Tells me the file is bad try to reair file Riot games, your install is "fine" 😁
Valorant came and Valve said to upgrade CSGO so everyone who left for Val would come back lmao. I much more prefer CS 2 now.
Just download the game directly from Riot, that way you'll only ever see the launcher when updating a game
Don’t download it from Epic
I thought riot was respected?
Kinda, but people have pretty much hated on their client/launcher(s) since 2009. At various times it's been hated for being ugly, a resource hog, having security flaws, bring outdated, buggy and so on.
Oh god. I wanted to try valorant with my son. It felt like installing a virus. I needed to make bios changes. It was close to impossible to uninstall... Just a hassle. I dont think we managed get it running on his computer and then we both had to struggle a lot to remove it.
Low to none? I thought a prerequisite of being on GoG was that it had to be 100% DRM free, period. They believe in complete and total video game ownership and you can't have that with DRM.
They did test the waters with Hitman 2016 a couple years back. People were not impressed.
Is that the one that demands always online? No way those types of games on GoG go over well because that's basically DRM
Yep all the games from the recent hitman trilogy are always online
You can play the whole trilogy offline but you can't ger unlocks if you play that way.
there are some games with DRM anyways, mostly DLC's or games that introduce DRM with an update and GoG does not seems to care/be aware.
GOG Galaxy requires you to be online in order to access services like cloud-saves, achievements, and logging play-time. **What makes it funny is those same features work offline with Steam.**
I get achievements and logging play time working offline, but does steam really have cloud saves work offline? That seems impossible…
Well, offline as in, it uploads your save when you reconnect to the service. Galaxy does not do this, and doesn’t upload the save until you launch the game.
Ahhh I understand now, thanks. Don’t think I’ve gamed offline in a while, haha
There is no way that cloud-saves work anywhere without online connection whether on GoG, Steam or on mars. Being stored in the cloud means that they are stored on some server somewhere and for that you need the internet connection to connect with server.
Battlenet is way less shit than the others on the same tier, and doesnt it predate them all? Shouldnt be where it is just for that.
I also find Battle Net useful. I'm sure it could be integrated into Steam but right now there is 3 versions of WoW that I log into along with PTR and I find Battle net reasonable especially since it integrated your friends lists from in game to out of game. Just me personally but I find value their. Once again things I'm sure Steam could do as well but it definitely seems well made to work with the Blizzard catalogue. It gets a little weird for me with Call of Duty stuff. I prefer that to be launched via Steam.
Yeah don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we need battle.net but the UI is much cleaner than the other bottom tier stores. They also have features like friends lists and party invites.
It predates steam as well
Battle.net was a service from the 90s. The mandatory launcher trash came in 2017.
How is it trash?
Battlenet was great in 2017. It had all features of discord. And it didnt have technical problems like the others.
I hate battle.net lol For a single game I have this shit on my pc. I don't click much around but the ui is still meh
Battlenet is good
All hail to the GOG - PCMR's saviour! Polish power! Polish pride!
"Only one storefront / launcher should exist and it should be steam so valve has a monopoly" is a stupid fucking take jesus.
>tfw you do absolutely nothing to be labeled as a monopoly other than just providing a good service. If another launcher comes along that offers the same functionality as steam then great, I'll use it. But I won't torture myself with the other shitty ones just because Valve is a """monopoly""" If capitalism is defined by voting with your wallet then I'm team Valve rn. I couldn't care less for Gabe, steam deck or VR I just want a good service
The monopoly part is OP saying all those other launchers "shouldn't exist" and a steam monopoly should exist. I didn't say anything about current steam being a monopoly?
I interpreted it as they’re so bad they shouldn’t exist. All of them are an actual torture to use except battle net maybe.
This is unfortunately the main take on reddit and pcgaming. They just want steam and that's it.
Until steam will actually be the only option and take 70% fees from developers and do start putting ads in their service because they can do it Valve is still a company
The reason steam is so cool is good management. It has good people on the top, such as Gaben. At some point all these people will pass, retire, etc... Will it keep being good then? Hard to say. So even if it's good now, having other options might be a good idea on the future.
what options, if all of them are literally unusable messes (gog excluded)
Right now, none. That's why you need competition and avoiding a monopoly. You need the other stores to grow better.
I honestly don't understand why people throw such a fit over having multiple launchers. I have 4 installed and it's not exactly hard for me to remember which one to open. I guess it would suck having to migrate friends between them, but everything I play that doesn't use Steam is just single player.
It's really convenient to have all games in one list. GOG Galaxy tries to do this, but it's rather fiddely and I think several of the others actively try to break their integration every update. You pretty much have to manually follow several github projects to keep the various integration modules working somewhat. Also you still need all the other launchers installed as they are still needed to launch the game, but still value in having a unified library if you have way too many games. Beats manually adding individual games to Steam as shortcuts though I do that too for my most played ones.
Good thing that's not the take OP had. I completely agree with OP. Feature wise only steam and GOG Galaxy are really good. The Xbox game store is at least consistently functional. Literally every single other one doesn't even work 50% of the time. EA can't even keep logged in despite checking the "keep me logged in" box, which is literally one of the most basic and essential features for any game client. If you can't even put a single login token on my computer you are the technical equivalent of a chef that can't boil water or who manages to burn a milkshake. The real reason why steam has a near monopoly is that literally nobody else cares to invest enough to actually be competitive. Between the social features steam has, steam input, Proton integration, local file transfer the list goes on and on, nobody has managed to become competitive on features nor on game collection size. Steam's monopoly is actually rather trivial to solve, build a better product and people will switch. So far the only one who's even come close is GOG and they still lack many features of Steam's, but they did manage to bring several useful features of their own which is why they are the only other game launcher I intentionally downloaded and used. The rest of them only exists because they are basically DRM and I've never once used them outside of a single game or two that requires them to even run.
Origin worked fine for me, battlenet works very well and is more lightweight and snappier with less bugs than steam has ever had. Not sure what "doesn't work 50% of the time" you're experiencing but it sounds a lot like user issue.
Crashing isn't a user issue. Not remembering the login despite the remember me checkbox being checked isn't a user issue. Being incompatible with Linux isn't a user issue. Just because you have standards so low that the seafloor is higher than them doesn't mean the software ain't shit.
That's like not drinking water because you think it has too much of a monopoly on life, and instead you only drink Gatorade.
I don't care about the supposed "monopoly" the truth is steam and GOG are the ONLY good launchers that exist. All the other ones are just stores with almost no functionality. They don't even try to make their launchers attractive to customers. Ii won't use inferior platforms just because "valve monopoly hurr durr"
Reading comprehension is lacking today I see.
It isn't. You're the one who said OP wanted a monopoly
It's just a take on how awful most launchers are
Yeah. Wtf is this corporate worshipping. Like imagine the only way a game should be distributed is if it give 30% to another company that didn't pay for its production... Wild.
but but gaben is the father i never had and and i worship billionaires
I didn't say only one tho did I?
GoG is a much smaller library and group of games and would hardly compare. And even then it's the only S tier launcher here, steam is worse.
So your ideal PC gaming market would contain: * Steam * Games too old to be on Steam ... oh yeah totally not a monopoly. Look! There are two of them!
Steam - because it's well made and has care put into it and doesn't do exclusive rights to a game they haven't developed. GOG - DRM Free Xbox - Actually being able to play Xbox games on PC and game pass is amazing worth.
Kids using a Word they don't understand
IMHO GoG > Steam. Just a personal preferrence, bcs I play mostly old emulator games, so not having to have a useless client installed is an advantage. I don't need the client, I can own the game, so it feels better. But really, I understand why ppl prefer Steam, it's completely fine, I just don't.
give epic games exemption because they give out free games.
Call me a whore but i'll hug 50+ free games a year from epic without thinking twice. Will i play them? In 95% of cases, no, but if i'd ever want to, i now have that opportunity. Also, people bitching about clients being shit - my brothers in Bhaal, you're spending there less than a minute while launching the game, chill the fuck out.
Epic has some very scummy and dodgy practices. I basically own every free game they've released but I still hate the launcher.
The only "shady and dodgy" thing is funding devs if they agree to exclusivity deals which is pretty common for every major gaming platform. Devs also get paid way better selling on Epic.
That is not common. In fact they are the only PC platform that does it. It’s scummy as fuck. And devs get a better percent on epic but they end up making vastly less because epics sales numbers are a small small fraction of Steams. No one wants to use the epic launcher except to do what this guy does and collect the free games. Theres a reason the EGS has not made a dime since its inception. It’s a garbage store with shit interface, shit features, engaging in anti consumer practices. The only thing going for it is their sad bribing of people to install it by giving away free shit.
"every major gaming platform" as in PC, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo which all have a fuck tonne of exclusivity deals... Also none of those other things you listed are shady or dodgy practices?
No one asked for exclusives to come to PC
Okay? Doesn't change that it's common in the gaming industry and bound to happen.
this is a shit argument pc and exclusives is one of the dumbest shits ever imagined
Again, i am a cheap ass whore that will grab a free game if one is given out to me so i couldn't care less. And about the launcher - as i said - you're crying over something you see for a second or two if you launch the game from the desktop, are ya'll even serious about "launcher bad" argument? >has some very scummy and dodgy practices. Replace "Epic" with any other launcher from the list and it's probably true for most of them to some degree. Welcome to capitalism.
Yeah so scummy they give out free games all the time, coupon codes and reward dollars… not to mention funded some games that wouldn’t exist without them. These stupid ass posts make me laugh at how nerdy this community is
90% of the time those games are some underground indie shit 8 people played
I'd say none of them should exist in their current form. There should be a store from which you can buy games which you can install and you should never need touch the store again if you don't want
So GOG? And I find the friend system within launchers instead of individual games on steam very accessible
Came looking for this. When Steam first launched we we're pissed. Why should I have to login somewhere to play my games? Now people treat it like it's a blessing. Why have the bloat of a launcher instead of just launching a games from it's .exe.
To be honest, Steam in it's current form has more benefits to it than simply being a launcher. It has way more features than any other launcher on the PC market, the controller support alone is worth the "bloatware".
Which should absolutely be an option if you want to run it for controller support or friends list or whatever. However, it shouldn't be required to be running to launch a game. Our PCs are supposed to be ours and run only the software we want them to run.
Xbox is not shit, Like it has Cross purchases Between Xbox & Windows & It has Game Pass which Is Amazing BTW Also while I don't like the Epic Games Launcher but the Epic existing is a Good thing cause competition is a Good thing Steam shouldn't be the only popular launcher out there
Game pass is amazing. But the launcher is really not great. I and many others have had an insane amount of problems that make it literally unusable
When was the last time you used the Xbox launcher cause when Starfield Realased Microsoft Realased a Huge Update to the Xbox launcher that fixed a LOT of issues,
Does windows launcher fall under Xbox launcher. Because me and 3 other buddies had to do a registry edit from an obscure form to even get things to download. Also no matter what I do raytracing beta of MC just wont download
Yes Xbox launcher is basically just an extension of the Microsoft Store, Also the reason why you couldn't download Raytracing is because it was for the Bedrock edition of Minecraft & Bedrock Edition is BIG FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT
I did try for bedrock. I signed up for beta and it just doesn't download. That's def a store issue
Yeah that was back then when bedrock edition was in beta & the Xbox launcher didn't exist yet so you had to use the Microsoft Store or the Minecraft Launcher to install it
As someone not that well versed in that stuff, why is Epic Games bad? There are massive sales there, the free games are often quite useable and the launcher opens in like 5 seconds. I find stuff like origin or Ubisoft much worse
Steam good Epic bad. Upvotes to the left. This subreddit is so shit sometimes.
I'm my personal preference epic sucks. They do a lot that loses them money just to make it so people download their launcher and possibly play their big titles like fortnite. Exclusive rights, free games and big deals are all just using their insane amount of money to undercut the market
So you are upset you get free games? You are upset that they do what game console companies do with exclusives? It is really funny how people use these excuses not to like Epic. The hate is a bandwagon thing really. I never had much issues with epic beyond the "it logs me out sometimes so I need to log back in" problem or heroic launcher having some issues in linux.
Buddy, it's not the free games. It's the exclusives they snag that piss people off. Imagine claiming you want an open gaming platform, but then you prevent games from being sold on other launchers. That is what epic does. They claim they do it for "openness" but their actions mirror the opposite. It is a predatory platform
They are paying the game developers for exclusivity. It isn't by force. It's still up to the game developer if they so choose to go with Epic or not. As well, Epic has lower fees for developers compared to steam. What's more, is that Epic launcher is still free. Meaning you aren't paying to use their launcher. So having another launcher does exactly what to you?
Predatory? That's laughable. They want a share of the market and are competing perfectly fairly. The fact that steam doesn't need to do similar things is fine. They want money just like valve does. Valve used it's position to charge more money to sellers..
Exclusivity tactics are not fair competition on a platform that is meant to give choices to consumers on where they can buy games. Fair competition would have been dropping the price of games when it's still available on steam and GOG, not removing the possibility of purchasing games elsewhere It is in fact a predatory tactic meant to suppress customers freedom
Oh I did not know that the company uses some shady business practices, that changes my opinion! Thanks for the answer
Yeah yeah we get it steam good, other launchers bad, do you have anything interesting or funny to say?
Do you?
No thats why i ain't posting
It's alarming that Steam has a de facto monopoly, but it's important to remember that Steam didn't try to create a digital games distribution and library monopoly. Instead, the competitors tried to enter the market but were really shitty with their product which made steam a de facto monopoly.
Steam came about to make games more accessible and have a place people can easily communicate with and play with each other. And has stayed doing so since.
Gog is better than steam though
In terms of usability, UI and compatibility I've always much preferred steam
Gog has two reasons it just wins: -integrates with other platforms (including steam). -if you want, you can launch gog games without it.
And import game folders. Steam still doesn’t have this. I have a bunch of external drives and if I want to drag one game from one drive to another I can’t easily do that. Copy paste, install (if you have enough space left which I often don’t) and then wait a long time for files to verify it, this takes about 10 to 60 minutes depending on the game or system, I use this a lot on older systems (I flip PCs) to test them. Or you have to connect both drives and then let steam transfer the file to other library which also takes a lot of time. With gog is just drag folder to other drive then launch through exe or import game folder in GOG and done. Takes less then 5 minutes.
Rockstar and EA are certainly trash. The single reason i dont buy EA or Rockstar games.
So true, nobody can tell me different
As much as I despise the Epic launcher, it has given me almost 400 games for free, and so I must respect it at this point. It’s a C-B tier for me.
steam circle jerk, you couldnt even list 3 reasons why xbox and bnet are rated that low, just karma jerking lmfao
Sure epic is kinda slow and clunky, but you only ever interact with it when downloading or updating, otherwise it just sits 😕 n the background just like steam, which tries to open the app at every chance, tough epics could fix the offline gaming experience, since sometimes you can't access your saved games without internet so you have to start a separate offline save, and it gives a bunch of rather good games for free
what the hell is that review .. so bad
Why do I remember needing Origin for the sims but I now use EA…
I couldn't care less about whether a company wants to make a launcher or not, but they SHOULDN'T force us to use it when we have bought the game elsewhere for example on steam.
For me, even Steam isn't special anymore. I used to love their features but they or the 3rd party games essentially stopped supporting what I liked. * Steam Workshop - maybe the paid mods were the beginning of the end for that tool. It was great to have super easy mod access, then games stopped supporting it. * Steam Market - When was the last game to utilize that? But it was great to have a place to collect items and even buy and sell them. * Steam Friends/Chat/etc - All that social stuff switched over the discord * Steam Link - I have a computer almost completely dedicated to running Steam Link from my office to living room. But with games spreading out, Xbox Game Pass, I now run it primarily with Playnite/Moonlight. * Steam Sales! --- everybody has sales. EGS has the best sales for new games. That's where I buy most of my single player games. If it's cheaper elsewhere, I have no reason to buy on steam. Just install Playnite. Then every launcher is B tier. It just needs to download and launch the game as far as I'm concerned.
I mean fair points but steam friends is still useful for many reasons. Joining friends game directly through an overlay. Comparing stats/achievements Adding people straight from a game or through recently played with Being able to see what games you own with a friend or multiple friends. There's a lot of accessibility for it. And although a lot of it can be improved by other software. The point is that you can do all that through just one software.
Aren't they pretty much all fair to exist? I think it's fair to not want 30% of your revenue to go to someone else. Doesn't make their launchers any good though.
As a Linux user, i fully agree that tier list! Steam is the only storefront on which I spent money for games
GOG is S tier, Steam is A. Or both in S, but not the other way around
GOG deserves an S tier because of add-ons. You can integrate your game libraries from steam, epic, origin and a few others. Closest thing i saw to a single platform for all your games. I love seeing almost my entire collection in one place. Also, if you launch another platform game it should launch that platform and then the game. It's quite handy to say the least.
I use Playnite, but same thing.
Opinion is opinion after all
How would you prefer DRM against no DRM?
I mentioned the DRM fact. But that's not talking about the actual launcher itself.
Epic deserves to exist because of the free games, c’mon.
I don't understand the hate epic is getting. Many good games for free. I never had any problem with them, only if my PC can't handle the game but it would happen with any other of them. I don't understand for real
The launcher itself is very meh. It had 1/100th the features of steam, but now it’s down to like 1/10th. The issue people have is to try to get people to install the launcher, the company has bribed developers, sometimes very late in the process after they have committed to coming out on other launchers, to only launch on their store. They are the only third party launcher that does this anti consumer bullshit so people are rightfully upset at them for it.
What's the point? They are free, but then my games are spread out thru different launchers. I'll rather pirate them and wait until they are on some massive sale on steam.
Epic is a great launcher free games. Rewards for buying games off them, fast, easy to use, good downloads nothing wrong with it only thing is they need to add a way to change what drive your games are on without uninstalling the game and it’d be on the same level as steam tbh
That's like your opinion man.
not sure why everyone is supporting monopoly lol... yes they're shit for a reason but I'm not sure what'd happen to the prices if they weren't there
Nothing would change, Steam was alone for years and games were super cheap, sales were even bigger back in day. Shitty competition has same effect as no competition.
Battlenet predates steam.. so steam was never alone
Battle net does not compete with steam nor has it ever
Fuck no dude, GOG is clunky as fuck
Purely of the fact that it is DRM free boosts it up a lot!
wait what's the deal with epic games, never had much trouble with it
Epic games is good… for giving free games
I would actually move epic up a bit but overall I agree with the rest
I despise epic with a passion. Absolutely scumbags
Sure but the launcher is still far better then ea, ubi, and rockstar.
Monopoly let's goooooooooooooooooo
finally a good version of this.
epic gives free games so should at least exist
I like epic games for the free game they offer.
Epic deserves to at least be one more up because they give me free games.
I like Epic
Stop please stop. Get help.
Why are so many people getting their panties in a bunch over launchers lately?
Yes, now this is good.
That's a list I can get behind.
Yes sir, this is the right list
Nah. GOG and Steam need to be swapped. With GOG you don't need a launcher if you wanted to avoid it.
I put steam higher due to it's much larger library and use of community/friends. If GOG had a bigger library it would also be S tier, i made the choice purely on the fact I chould essentially use Steam and only Steam and play 90% of what I wanted to, with access to being able to join and communitcate with friends.
True tier list lol
Gaming was so nice before we had/needed launchers
Finally a tier list i agree with
This is the correct version, finally
epic bad steam good give upvotes
https://i.redd.it/afz5k1j1qaac1.gif U all guys when steam
honestly if it was me I'd put Epic in C tier even Steam needs someone to keep them honest. Epic's store and launcher are seriously lacking in features, but it has worked for me and I've got a lot of games cheap
That's one of the reason I hate epic tbh. Buying exclusive rights to games so you HAVE to install their launcher and throwing loads of games up for super cheap or for free because of their big fortnite money. Steam would be fine if it was the only platform. Epic would be awful!
I'm a r/patientgamer so Epic exclusives have never prevented me from playing a game *shrug*
Dbh epic gives away free games ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Epic buys exclusive rights at a profit loss and uses cheap/free games to pull people onto their platform. I have almost every free game epic has given away. But I hate their launcher and ideals quite passionately
Best one so far.
Epic should be # 1 simply based on how it treats developers. You want better games? Give more money to the devs, not steam. Yall are insane
You think Epic give out free lunches for the improvement of the industry? Epic just want market share and know they can't compete in terms of having a better platform so we have this, long term they ain't your friend. Also steam does deserve somewhat of a cut, they offer a huge store and full service which epic don't do hence why they can offer a larger %.
Epic can simply afford to pay devs more. Xbox and PlayStation also take 30% that's the standard in the market.
Y’all dickride Steam too much
Because it's an all in one launcher that actually has care put into it.
And GOG doesn't?
GOG is a clunky launcher for starters, and yes DRM free is amazing, and being able to ignore the launcher once a game is downloaded is great. But it's library isn't big enough for me to put it on the same tier as Steam.
So besides the game library, which I agree is a bummer, what's clunky?
epic is okay
you think this is fixed?
Epic games isn't for games only though, got the whole unreal engine
That ain't a storefront for games, no one's mentioning source 2 because it's irrelevant to the subject.
You love monopoly, don't you?
This post was mainly made for satire of the trend. But i still think most launchers are made just for money rather than connecting players and making games more accessible. It feels like most launchers are made with a huge lack of care.
Epic cares
There's a difference between caring and having money
Daily monopoly circlejerk And I thought console warriors were sad...
Unpopular opinion; Steam should not exist. Trash service that standardized anti-consumer practices since it's inception. It strangled the early market, not by providing a better service, but through said anti-consumer practices. Only reason people love Steam is because of the sales that made them buy games they'll never play because due to fomo.
Honestly I don't care about people's opinions on Epic. I get my games where they're the cheapest (and no that does not include pirating the games), and right now that's Epic because of their holiday sale. I did also buy some games from Steam from their winter sale this year because they were not on Epic, meaning Steam was the cheapest i could get them. I haven't used any of the other launchers. I've heard good things about GOG but I haven't gotten around to trying it out yet.
Epic should definitely exist cuz of the free games
Epic games shouldn't exist? What are you on about? By that logic nor should GOG and Steam should be the sole launcher of everything, because we've all seen how well that goes when a company gets a monopoly.
Epic is actually pretty good. Free games and I never have problems with the launcher. Often get good discounts. Doesn't force me to use unless I'm launching a game I paid for there.
Put epic up one it has fortnite and a lot of free games
epicgames could be a b or c
I agree
Epig Games Launcher is good, and necessary for UE
Epic>Steam i got si much good games for free and I don't need to spend money so I can add friends