New game launchers installed, yay!

The "yay" is sarcastic, of course.

So Rockstar games just recently introduced a new games launcher, and you have to download it to play any of their games, even if you already owned them on steam, so had to download that one.

And now today I downloaded yet another game launcher called Battle.net from Blizzard games, as its going to be the only way to buy the upcoming highly anticipated Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (reboot edition)

So another big game company is forgoing steam and making people install another game launcher just to play a new game that they know will be super popular.

This is getting ridiculous. How many more new game launchers from other companies will be coming yet, I wonder. Sheesh!

you in a cave til today?

Game Launchers = DRM ?

This is why I just stick with the two that I have and currently use, great old games and steam. If the games aren't available at either of those, I do without. It keeps things pretty simple, and most of the games I play and re-play are older ones, usually available at the two I use.

Game launchers = DRM + Spyware.
But everyone is getting used to them.
Just like Windows Metrics, and every mobile app you install.

Well in battle.net defense; it is one of the older ones. In some ways it i the oldest predating steam but i forget exactly when they required you to use it as when it was only used for multi-player.... I do remember using battlnet back in the late 90s or early 2000's when i played starcraft but back then it was just for online play - but it worked well

Arkadia7 said:

The "yay" is sarcastic, of course.

So Rockstar games just recently introduced a new games launcher, and you have to download it to play any of their games, even if you already owned them on steam, so had to download that one.

And now today I downloaded yet another game launcher called Battle.net from Blizzard games, as its going to be the only way to buy the upcoming highly anticipated Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (reboot edition)

So another big game company is forgoing steam and making people install another game launcher just to play a new game that they know will be super popular.

This is getting ridiculous. How many more new game launchers from other companies will be coming yet, I wonder. Sheesh!

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you said:

Well in battle.net defense; it is one of the older ones. In some ways it i the oldest predating steam but i forget exactly when they required you to use it as when it was only used for multi-player…. I do remember using battlnet back in the late 90s or early 2000's when i played starcraft but back then it was just for online play - but it worked well

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Ah, ok. I didn't know that. I thought it was a new one or something. I was never into Diablo or Starcraft or any of Blizzard's catalogue. I didn't realize it was that old in terms of game launchers.

Arkadia7 said:

And now today I downloaded yet another game launcher called Battle.net from Blizzard games, as its going to be the only way to buy the upcoming highly anticipated Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (reboot edition)

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We're going to have to ask you to hand over your RPG-fan card.

JDR13 said:

We're going to have to ask you to hand over your RPG-fan card.

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I'm quite sure he is familiar with RPGs if he is playing Call of Duty. Those buildings don't knock themselves down.

If there are no game launchers, then is it fair to say each game is its own launcher?

Not really; one is the (we hope) stand alone game; the other is a process that runs in the background collects analyitics to report to a publisher who wishes to (a) sell your data and (b) use your data to encourage you to buy more.... and (c) report you to mommy.
--
Now naturally a game can do all of these things on the side but (we hope) they don't.

lostforever said:

If there are no game launchers, then is it fair to say each game is its own launcher?

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lostforever said:

If there are no game launchers, then is it fair to say each game is its own launcher?

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I disagree, fellow thinker. Let me ask you this: If there are no launchers, how can there be launchers?

Arkadia7 said:

Ah, ok. I didn't know that. I thought it was a new one or something. I was never into Diablo or Starcraft or any of Blizzard's catalogue. I didn't realize it was that old in terms of game launchers.

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Battle.net came out in 1996, pre-dates Steam by almost 7 years :lol: Gotta be the oldest one still in use. The rather new development is that Activision's games are also starting to require it now, instead of just Blizzard's.

you said:

Not really; one is the (we hope) stand alone game; the other is a process that runs in the background collects analyitics to report to a publisher who wishes to (a) sell your data and (b) use your data to encourage you to buy more…. and (c) report you to mommy.
--
Now naturally a game can do all of these things on the side but (we hope) they don't.

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As you say, a "game" can do all same things as a "launcher" if it wanted, I claim then there is no difference between a game and launcher for the purpose of this argument

A "launcher" may not do all those things you claimed or at least can give you an option to turn it off etc so it can be benign as well.

Cacheperl said:

I disagree, fellow thinker. Let me ask you this: If there are no launchers, how can there be launchers?

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I am thinker yes but it seems you are a "deep" thinker

What I should have said is that if there are no "separate launchers" then the game act as its own launcher.

I kinda picked up a philosophical undertone.

But seriously, I don't think games are by default their own launchers, and hence do not have the (maybe negligible) overhead. A few do bring their own launchers, in the sense of some application that starts before the game itself. For instance, to select mods / options / multiplayer / campaigns / other stuff. These do not necessarily have the same drawback as centralised launchers, for instance: forcing you to have a connection to some server, doing updates before you can run the game, sending usage data.

Cacheperl said:

I kinda picked up a philosophical undertone.

But seriously, I don't think games are by default their own launchers, and hence do not have the (maybe negligible) overhead. A few do bring their own launchers, in the sense of some application that starts before the game itself. For instance, to select mods / options / multiplayer / campaigns / other stuff. These do not necessarily have the same drawback as centralised launchers, for instance: forcing you to have a connection to some server, doing updates before you can run the game, sending usage data.

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I broadly agree and given the choice I rather have less launcher etc.

However, most launchers these days does not get in the way like they used to after you have installed them so I find them to negligible and don't really understand the hate. I have steam, uplay, origin, blizzard, gog galaxy, epic and twitch installed on my box. I simply double click on a game icon and it run and plays like any game without a launcher and I have even on occasion forgotten I have some of these installed.

The problem is people want one centralised launcher for all their games but they don't seem to understand is that if you want competition between companies this is impossible.

lostforever said:

I broadly agree and given the choice I rather have less launcher etc.

However, most launchers these days does not get in the way like they used to after you have installed them so I find them to negligible and don't really understand the hate. I have steam, uplay, origin, blizzard, gog galaxy, epic and twitch installed on my box. I simply double click on a game icon and it run and plays like any game without a launcher and I have even on occasion forgotten I have some of these installed.

The problem is people want one centralised launcher for all their games but they don't seem to understand is that if you want competition between companies this is impossible.

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Except this is the classic case of acceptance.

Because they don't get in your way, and don't cause any visible issues, you ceased caring about "what" else they do. As long as they don't bother you and let you launch the game etc, then its all good. Thats totally fine for some people. Like I mentioned above. People are now used to installing 40 aps on their smartphone and literally don't have a clue what they do besides their advertised use. The PC is getting to be no different.

Wisdom said:

Except this is the classic case of acceptance.

Because they don't get in your way, and don't cause any visible issues, you ceased caring about "what" else they do. As long as they don't bother you and let you launch the game etc, then its all good. Thats totally fine for some people. Like I mentioned above. People are now used to installing 40 aps on their smartphone and literally don't have a clue what they do besides their advertised use. The PC is getting to be no different.

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Yes it is classic case of acceptance and knowing so since what is the alternative?

No one wants a single launcher owned by private company so I am against that. I would love to have some sort of "open source"/ "open standard" which will allow different companies to work together but I doubt this will ever happen given steam's dominance in the market. So I don't know what else will work if you want competition?

Also its not that I don't care what else these launchers do. I know what they do and its not something a "standard alone" game can't do so I have determined that, for all practical purposes a game can doing all the "nefarious" stuff if they choose to do so. For example, its not that hard for Ubisoft or anyone else to bake uplay into to their game and not even tell you about it and do all the data collection they want and bury the details in the T&C somewhere.

The real issue is that these launchers only became popular after the internet simply because you can now phone home and pass info to the parent company. You don't need "launcher" for for this to happen. If you install something from company and you have internet, they can phone home and pass all the info they want and there is no way around it. Or the only way is to not install their stuff….

I don't have an answer other than financial restraint and telling them you won't buy their product with their launcher. They do it because they can.