The only game I preordered in years was the new Bond game and that was before they disclosed they infested it with Denuvo. I refunded that shit before preloaded was even done.
Then another 10 minutes setting up graphics settings and your out 1/2 hour of your refundable time. On top of that sometimes you have to make an account so thats another 15-20 minutes. Then there are possible proton problems so you might have to test different protons. I play on laptop and deck so I might not have internet all the time, I have to test if the game can play without internet. Might waste most of your trial period on getting the game to run.
I ended up giving up on my playthrough of Mass Effect Legendary Edition on linux for this reason. The EA App worked fine for a bit, so I had time to finish ME1 and get about halfway through ME2, but then the app updated and would just crash after that.
I'd say the many games that died when Games for Windows Live went down. Many of them got patches to make them work again (officially), but many games just became permanently unplayable (officially).
Frankly, I despise all launchers, Steam included. The only reason it gets a pass is because it's one of the two somewhat reasonable ones, and the only one that makes gaming on Linux simple and convenient.
It's still slow, ugly as hell, and entirely unnecessary. Makes me want to pirate more, but then I'd have to set the games up from scratch.
The only use case for launchers is console gaming. It makes perfect sense on a Deck, Switch or a PS5. But absolutely no sense whatsoever on a desktop PC.
Again - Steam has features that make it tolerable (achievements, screenshot sharing, workshop, etc.), but I'd still prefer to just play my games without anything in the middle.
I think some games on steam you can just launch from the executable file. I rarely have, because my process is usually "open steam.. stare at list of games.. pick one", so steam is already open.
But yeah, at least it adds some value (proton magic, recording and screenshots, the overlay used to be real useful when i only had one monitor...)
I get how organization can be useful but if click game.exe on my OS homescreen it should open game.exe. Not a series of launchers and login screens before launching game.exe
I like Steam as a launcher because I can organize my games
for games I know I want to play, pretty sure I've often just launched them directly. I don't remember, as I haven't played much on Steam lately, if it would then launch steam before launching the game.
and the only one that makes gaming on Linux simple and convenient.
It's not though, there are a handful of game launchers for Linux. Faugus Launcher is a good lightweight one. I believe you can export the game as an icon as well so you don't even need to open the launcher first if you don't want to (haven't personally done this, but pretty due can).
I'll only use Steam for my non-Steam games if I need controller support since Steam Input is pretty awesome.
The only other laucher i dont have a problem with is warthunders launcher
Mostly because its what its needed any nothing more, games loading? Launcher automaticlly shutsoff (less then 1 megabyte)
It doesnt need a login for the launcher itself
If its downloaded through steam you may never actualy know it even has a launcher
I wanted to try this "GTAV" game all the kids were talking about. It was on sale, so I spent four days downloading it over my miserable rural DSL connection only to find out that it wouldn't work without rockstar demanding my information.
So I refunded it. Im sure there was a work around but I didn't need to play it that bad.
I was glad to see with Cyberpunk that I could skip login with their launcher. Later when I decided to try RDR2 it didn't let me skip login, so I refunded that shit with 0 minutes played.
It takes two. Fucking incredible game. Hasn't give me headaches during startup while playing on Linux. But God dang, why does it have to be paired with origin in windows and why do I have to login to it just run the game? Fucking eh...
I mean, cool that you've pirated it. Not my case tho.
I have heard tons of good reviews for this game and I bought it once it got goty. Truly a masterpiece so I wanted to support good devs (unfortunately distributed through a crap add distributor). I'd pirate it too but price was right and devs are saints in my eyes. Already have gotten myself Split fiction.
The last time I tolerated a 3rd party launcher was when I was playing through the mass effect trilogy, as the 3rd game needed EA's launcher, I think.
It was so much of a pain, I just swore them off completely. Now if a game needs a 3rd party launcher, I either just don't play it, or... Yarr, if it's good enough to warrant it.
I bought ME:LE and I still refuse to play it uncracked. The EA app bullshit has caused me more than enough grief, actively preventing me from playing the game I paid for unless it's cracked.
Exactly the same for me. I played ME 1&2 years ago when they launched through steam, then when I finally got 3 it made me go through the EA launcher. I endured it just long enough to do the game once and then uninstalled it, and now I'm more vigilant about checking the reqs to see if games need 3rd party software.
The launcher kept failing. Old Rockstar accounts, New ones, didn't matter. Refunded. I May pirate it at some point, I'll enjoy the nostalgia of it probably.
I just bought Far Cry 3 on steam, because it was on sale, but launching it requires me to sign into the uplay launcher. I now had multiple occurrences of the game not starting, because uplay couldn’t verify that I own the game. I then decided to open Far Cry from the uplay launcher directly which still opened steam. I guess jokes on me for not pirating the game.
Diablo II Resurrected: Load Battle.Net first, click through ads for other stuff, click again to start the game, press buttons to skip the animations, and press another key to really log in, for real this time.
So I just made a button that launches a script that does all those clicks for me while I retrieve a beverage. The only reason I didn't just pirate was so I could play online with an old friend.
I tolerate both steam and heroic.
I can see how a launcher is useful for centralized library management (updates and reinstallation), but I also see how it is a lot of concentrated attention and potential adspace / datamining tool.
I tolerate steam because they have good features & an okay track record, and heroic because I want to receive the free epic games but do not want to give them real estate on my pc.
I hate it so much when I am playing with a controller in Big Picture mode. Fuck off with extra bullshit. There's no reason a sign in thing needs to be a special window or extra program. I should be able to do anything like that in the game itself.
My setup has been pretty good at handling those, though thankfully I often don’t need to.
On Moonlight, I can hold the start button to briefly enable mouse mode, then click whatever I need to. Don’t think Steam remote play has something similar.
IDK about remote play, but Steam has special button combos to help with this. Holding the "home/menu" button activates mouse mode with the right stick. But holding that button is also generally how you turn the controller off so you gotta use it in short bursts or you turn the damn thing off. :/
It messes so much up when I'm streaming from one PC to another too. I usually have to go back and forth to the other room to use the launcher, and sometimes again to make sure it focuses on the right application window.
My gaming PC is connected to the TV screen and I use it like a console - which means I mostly use a gamepad. Until one of these fuckers show up, and I need to get off my lazy ass and go grab the keyboard...
Hold the "home" button (Xbox button, PS button; whatever the center one that opens the console menu is for your controller) and then use the right stick to move the cursor and R1 for left click.
Also good to know: Home and the left face button (X for xbox, Square for PS, Y for Nintendo) to open the on screen keyboard if it doesn't open automatically when selecting an input field (like naming your dude or something).
The only thing that sucks about Steam's special button combos is they all use the Home button; which also turns off most controllers when held long enough. 😬
One game i can sort of excuse it is stellaris, where you can configure your modlist in the launcher. That does save a ton of loading time when you tinker with your shit and need to restart a couple times.
Well, because it was originally sold as a DRM free game.
handles this just fine
But I would dispute this. I'm working out a modlist right now, and I'd be pulling my hair out if I had to do it in game, or manually with the XML file + mod IDs.
A launcher is still unnecessary here. The menu of the game is as much a launcher as game assets and mods do not need to be loaded at the menu, and the menu can be designed to serve this function with immersive design instead of hostile design.
Most launchers exist to inject web content so they can advertise to you without needing you to update the launcher.
But it’s never risen to the level of “I literally will not buy/play the game over this.”
I don’t get people who say this at all. You buy this cool game you love, you’ll spend hours playing it, but you won’t enter a fake email and wait another 30 seconds at launch to play it?
Even at the peak of Origin’s woes, I never got close to that.
It's yet another program you didn't choose collecting whatever data from your computer, and yet another - very intentional - obstacle to the gaming experience. Honestly, it's less about time and more about artificial obstructions and privacy invasion everywhere.
It is particularly egregious when studios who normally side with the gamers, like CDPR, do the same thing with their games.
But it’s never risen to the level of “I literally will not buy/play the game over this.”
I couldn't play Mirrors Edge once, because the fucking launcher (what was it, EA?) triggered the opened-files-limit of Linux. 3D games ran fine before that.
Oh duh that's right, sometimes I forget that I proactively swore off games like that around the time I ditched Windows, rather than they just stopped being a thing.
Boycott app launchers and kernel-level anticheat, kids!
holy chud, people get angry at you because you are just blatantly insulting them, you got to the point of dehumanizing them
You are the same person that would insult people of another ethnicity, religion or gender just because you feel like, there is nothing human about doing that
Or well, there is something human considering that's something our species loves to do
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Nah, make a stop at the steam refund button on your way there
The only game I preordered in years was the new Bond game and that was before they disclosed they infested it with Denuvo. I refunded that shit before preloaded was even done.
What a bummer, I love bond games. Thankfully plenty of them on good systems like ps2.
I'm a fan of that one on '360. Felt like GoldenEye but with Daniel Craig and cover mechanics.
do that after you start downloading/installing
I have replaced game binaries with their pirated version for this sole reason
These publishers don't even deserve the relevancy of high pirate rates. Just find an indie game to play.
Wonder if there is one worse then Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
Launch game on steam
It opens EA Origin
It then opens the Mass Effect LE launcher
Now you get to pick which Mass Effect game you want to play.
Even worse on Linux, their stupid EA app breaks all the time. It took me 20 minutes fucking around to finally get it to work yesterday.
Then another 10 minutes setting up graphics settings and your out 1/2 hour of your refundable time. On top of that sometimes you have to make an account so thats another 15-20 minutes. Then there are possible proton problems so you might have to test different protons. I play on laptop and deck so I might not have internet all the time, I have to test if the game can play without internet. Might waste most of your trial period on getting the game to run.
I ended up giving up on my playthrough of Mass Effect Legendary Edition on linux for this reason. The EA App worked fine for a bit, so I had time to finish ME1 and get about halfway through ME2, but then the app updated and would just crash after that.
Battlefield 3 on Steam:
EA. More like hEll nAah
And the launcher looks like a flash website from 2002
I'd say the many games that died when Games for Windows Live went down. Many of them got patches to make them work again (officially), but many games just became permanently unplayable (officially).
I just stopped buying games from studios that do this.
Yep, same. If I buy a game and that's the first thing I'm hit with, it's an immediate refund. They can all go fuck off with their bs launchers.
Frankly, I despise all launchers, Steam included. The only reason it gets a pass is because it's one of the two somewhat reasonable ones, and the only one that makes gaming on Linux simple and convenient.
It's still slow, ugly as hell, and entirely unnecessary. Makes me want to pirate more, but then I'd have to set the games up from scratch.
The only use case for launchers is console gaming. It makes perfect sense on a Deck, Switch or a PS5. But absolutely no sense whatsoever on a desktop PC.
Again - Steam has features that make it tolerable (achievements, screenshot sharing, workshop, etc.), but I'd still prefer to just play my games without anything in the middle.
I think some games on steam you can just launch from the executable file. I rarely have, because my process is usually "open steam.. stare at list of games.. pick one", so steam is already open.
But yeah, at least it adds some value (proton magic, recording and screenshots, the overlay used to be real useful when i only had one monitor...)
Yep, launchers have always been a scam. Your launcher should be your operating system
My operating system can’t filter by specifics like “local co-op” or “anime titties” though.
I get how organization can be useful but if click game.exe on my OS homescreen it should open game.exe. Not a series of launchers and login screens before launching game.exe
game.exe
the end.
I like Steam as a launcher because I can organize my games
for games I know I want to play, pretty sure I've often just launched them directly. I don't remember, as I haven't played much on Steam lately, if it would then launch steam before launching the game.
it launches steam before launching the game
It's not though, there are a handful of game launchers for Linux. Faugus Launcher is a good lightweight one. I believe you can export the game as an icon as well so you don't even need to open the launcher first if you don't want to (haven't personally done this, but pretty due can).
I'll only use Steam for my non-Steam games if I need controller support since Steam Input is pretty awesome.
The correct take.
The only other laucher i dont have a problem with is warthunders launcher
Mostly because its what its needed any nothing more, games loading? Launcher automaticlly shutsoff (less then 1 megabyte) It doesnt need a login for the launcher itself
If its downloaded through steam you may never actualy know it even has a launcher
the steam page warns you of third party launches before you buy the game doesn't it?
so at least if it does happen it shouldn't be a surprise
First thing I look for and any for any game that has one I hit the ignore button.
I wish Steam offered the ability to blanket ignore anything that required a third party launcher.
You can block some of the worst offenders by blocking the publisher.
True, but even the worst offenders have exceptions and older games that didn’t yet require it.
That said, thanks for that because I didn’t know you could block a publisher outright.
This only kinda works and only for some publishers. It's getting better, but it's still spotty.
I wanted to try this "GTAV" game all the kids were talking about. It was on sale, so I spent four days downloading it over my miserable rural DSL connection only to find out that it wouldn't work without rockstar demanding my information.
So I refunded it. Im sure there was a work around but I didn't need to play it that bad.
Fucking Rockstar.
It took me fucking AGES to get Red Dead 2 running on CachyOS because of that bastard launcher.
I was glad to see with Cyberpunk that I could skip login with their launcher. Later when I decided to try RDR2 it didn't let me skip login, so I refunded that shit with 0 minutes played.
Thanks for telling me I'm just gonna pirate that shit now
It takes two. Fucking incredible game. Hasn't give me headaches during startup while playing on Linux. But God dang, why does it have to be paired with origin in windows and why do I have to login to it just run the game? Fucking eh...
I pirated the game and it doesn't do this
I have it on PS5 and it doesn't do this.
I mean, cool that you've pirated it. Not my case tho.
I have heard tons of good reviews for this game and I bought it once it got goty. Truly a masterpiece so I wanted to support good devs (unfortunately distributed through a crap add distributor). I'd pirate it too but price was right and devs are saints in my eyes. Already have gotten myself Split fiction.
The last time I tolerated a 3rd party launcher was when I was playing through the mass effect trilogy, as the 3rd game needed EA's launcher, I think.
It was so much of a pain, I just swore them off completely. Now if a game needs a 3rd party launcher, I either just don't play it, or... Yarr, if it's good enough to warrant it.
I bought ME:LE and I still refuse to play it uncracked. The EA app bullshit has caused me more than enough grief, actively preventing me from playing the game I paid for unless it's cracked.
I love Mass Effect, but I haven't played the 3rd because of this
Exactly the same for me. I played ME 1&2 years ago when they launched through steam, then when I finally got 3 it made me go through the EA launcher. I endured it just long enough to do the game once and then uninstalled it, and now I'm more vigilant about checking the reqs to see if games need 3rd party software.
ME 2 was better anyway
I just check the steam description. If it requires an account, uses a 3rd party launcher or/and has DRM, I pirate the game.
Same, except I don't pirate it, or play it. there's nearly limitless entertainment options and none is so special.
I tried to play GTA 4 through Steam
The launcher kept failing. Old Rockstar accounts, New ones, didn't matter. Refunded. I May pirate it at some point, I'll enjoy the nostalgia of it probably.
Know what works flawlessly? My Xbox 360 DISC.
Modern games are a joke.
Refund time
I just bought Far Cry 3 on steam, because it was on sale, but launching it requires me to sign into the uplay launcher. I now had multiple occurrences of the game not starting, because uplay couldn’t verify that I own the game. I then decided to open Far Cry from the uplay launcher directly which still opened steam. I guess jokes on me for not pirating the game.
I've made it a point to avoid games that require the used of a 3rd party launcher.
So I just made a button that launches a script that does all those clicks for me while I retrieve a beverage. The only reason I didn't just pirate was so I could play online with an old friend.
I particularly appreciate the fact that it's EAs launcher in the meme, undoubtedly one of if not the worst offender for this shit.
The only launchers i can bear are Steam (because it is useful after all, it has proton, the workshop, etc etc) and launchers for Minecraft
This and .desktop files. Don't forget your OS is already a launcher.
The EA launcher is bundled with Steam purchases of Mass Effect, for instance
Never played mass effect, but even if i did, fuck EA for adding a launcher no one needs
Negative review. Every time. No matter how good the game.
I also don't buy them any more but I have a load in my library.
Haven't bought a Ubisoft game for more than a decade because all of their new stuff requires Uplay.
That's actually good, you wasted no time from your 2 hour refund period and can pirate it then.
The only launcher (if it is?) I will allow is Steam. Other wise just won’t play the game or 🏴☠️.
I tolerate both steam and heroic. I can see how a launcher is useful for centralized library management (updates and reinstallation), but I also see how it is a lot of concentrated attention and potential adspace / datamining tool.
I tolerate steam because they have good features & an okay track record, and heroic because I want to receive the free epic games but do not want to give them real estate on my pc.
I feel this on a molecular level
I hate it so much when I am playing with a controller in Big Picture mode. Fuck off with extra bullshit. There's no reason a sign in thing needs to be a special window or extra program. I should be able to do anything like that in the game itself.
My setup has been pretty good at handling those, though thankfully I often don’t need to.
On Moonlight, I can hold the start button to briefly enable mouse mode, then click whatever I need to. Don’t think Steam remote play has something similar.
IDK about remote play, but Steam has special button combos to help with this. Holding the "home/menu" button activates mouse mode with the right stick. But holding that button is also generally how you turn the controller off so you gotta use it in short bursts or you turn the damn thing off. :/
It messes so much up when I'm streaming from one PC to another too. I usually have to go back and forth to the other room to use the launcher, and sometimes again to make sure it focuses on the right application window.
My gaming PC is connected to the TV screen and I use it like a console - which means I mostly use a gamepad. Until one of these fuckers show up, and I need to get off my lazy ass and go grab the keyboard...
Hold the "home" button (Xbox button, PS button; whatever the center one that opens the console menu is for your controller) and then use the right stick to move the cursor and R1 for left click.
Also good to know: Home and the left face button (X for xbox, Square for PS, Y for Nintendo) to open the on screen keyboard if it doesn't open automatically when selecting an input field (like naming your dude or something).
The only thing that sucks about Steam's special button combos is they all use the Home button; which also turns off most controllers when held long enough. 😬
Leased*
One game i can sort of excuse it is stellaris, where you can configure your modlist in the launcher. That does save a ton of loading time when you tinker with your shit and need to restart a couple times.
Nope. The mod bundle known as Rimworld does this just fine without launcher trash, and Paradox is not one of the good ones.
Rimworld has no native mod manager, and TBH editing it in game is slow and clunky. You can edit the XML file, but this is true of many games.
Of course one can use RimSort, but that’s a 3rd party fan project. It’s not really fair to expect every game to have a good one.
The point is that even Rimworld, an extremely mod heavy game, handles this just fine without forcing a publisher’s launcher on its players.
Well, because it was originally sold as a DRM free game.
But I would dispute this. I'm working out a modlist right now, and I'd be pulling my hair out if I had to do it in game, or manually with the XML file + mod IDs.
Yeah, I forgive XCOM for the same reason. Launchers are helpful for mod-heavy games.
A launcher is still unnecessary here. The menu of the game is as much a launcher as game assets and mods do not need to be loaded at the menu, and the menu can be designed to serve this function with immersive design instead of hostile design.
Most launchers exist to inject web content so they can advertise to you without needing you to update the launcher.
My favorite is that I bought a game on Epic and it has to use the Ubisoft Launcher.
Ubisoft accounts dont connect to Epic directly. Neither party - Ubisoft or Epic - would help me get it working so I cant play it.
Cool.
It’s annoying, I hate it. They’re useless bloat.
But it’s never risen to the level of “I literally will not buy/play the game over this.”
I don’t get people who say this at all. You buy this cool game you love, you’ll spend hours playing it, but you won’t enter a fake email and wait another 30 seconds at launch to play it?
Even at the peak of Origin’s woes, I never got close to that.
It's yet another program you didn't choose collecting whatever data from your computer, and yet another - very intentional - obstacle to the gaming experience. Honestly, it's less about time and more about artificial obstructions and privacy invasion everywhere.
It is particularly egregious when studios who normally side with the gamers, like CDPR, do the same thing with their games.
I couldn't play Mirrors Edge once, because the fucking launcher (what was it, EA?) triggered the opened-files-limit of Linux. 3D games ran fine before that.
It has one? How much stuff did it open 😭
/etc/security/limits.conf. I think default is usually in the 1000s? Of simultanously opened files.
Ok wtf? What the heck is EA doing
Well, was a few years back.
Not really a thing on Linux AFAIK, but that would be an instant refund for me if it happened.
It's absolutely a thing when running Windows games on Linux. Though sometimes you can skip it with a launch option, thank god for protondb.
Oh duh that's right, sometimes I forget that I proactively swore off games like that around the time I ditched Windows, rather than they just stopped being a thing.
Boycott app launchers and kernel-level anticheat, kids!
Yes, because i mostly see steam as a store. Games should start without needing a launcher in the first place.
Kindly fuck off with your asterisk letter bullshit.
Did you really think that response would win you any points? Fucking loser.
It's a troll account.
You go on a sub called ‘gaming’ and throw a sperg tantrum about gamers. What the actual fuck is wrong with you
You’re fucking nuts buddy.
Holy fucking turbochud, Batman.
How does you typing a word "sully" you? That makes no sense.
It's definitely embarrassing to be a gamer these days, but that doesn't justify dehumanizing people.
holy chud, people get angry at you because you are just blatantly insulting them, you got to the point of dehumanizing them
You are the same person that would insult people of another ethnicity, religion or gender just because you feel like, there is nothing human about doing that
Or well, there is something human considering that's something our species loves to do
Yeah I literally said it's embarrassing.