I'll be honest and say that I don't want 'competition' if it means that I'm just going to have to keep installing launchers on top of launchers on top of launchers in the future.
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Fallout 76: Bethesda confirms to PC Gamer that it will not be on Steam at launch
- Thread starter SFLUFAN
- Start date
So what stops besethda from making their own? Maybe because it isnt as cheap as alot of ppl think.
Bethesda has no refund policy, a broken useless social system (did you forget we're talking about a damn multiplayer game or something?) Trying to to reduce it into a "folder" is disengenious.
Btw, wanna guess the only way to play Madden using your PS4 controller on PC?
The problem is that what you describe isn't even competition, it's just limiting games to a specific store. I would certainly welcome competition if it meant each game was released in multiple stores, and accessible from my favorite client. But this isn't the case, so the arguments about competition are ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst. But yeah, I agree with you, having multiple launchers is a pain in the ass and doesn't benefit me at all.
Same here, I could see this becoming a trend in future for PC games.
With Sekiro confirmed to come to Steam I don't think it's "near future" talk though, since they're not ready to put their whole catalog to B.Net only. But Activision does like money so Steam makes sense, and they'll try to push their own launcher with other releases.
I guess I'm just not the guy who looks to refunding games so I didn't consider this. Can't argue there.
Wait how is Bethesda capable of stopping it? You can just add any executable to your game list in Steam as a non-Steam game.
I am sorry I didn't read all 17 pages. I came in when the thread was new read some of the comments and 17 pages later it doesn't make sense. In the initial pages I saw a lot of comments about this being bad because of consolidated game libraries.
And I guess I don't care about the specific Steam issue since I find it a bit trivial as there is a very easy workaround, but I don't get the constant bashing of any other launcher that takes 30 seconds to install and MAY give better features because it is done by the publisher. This thread is bashing any other launcher that is not Steam.
You are fighting for some Steam features and to see a number on a list and I really haven't read a lot of answers that are not some version of "But I only like it my way"
I feel a Bethesda launcher for Bethesda game would be a good thing going forrward. When Origin started it sucked and now it is good and getting better. Even Steam sucked when it was new.
What?
You can't be serious...
I can't read this thread anymore. Really, I'm out of here.
Some games like to force you using their launchers. So when you try launching through the games executable through steam it will launch then give you these error messages. You can add the Bethesda launcher through steam but the steam overlay won't work when you open a game. If it was a normal executable I would still lament the loss of native features but it would be more tolerable but not being able to use the steam overlay kinda sucks. Mostly cause I like posting screenshots on my steam page and feed and have a lot of people messaging me on steam while I play. People I don't have a discord channel with.
That's what I said....
But Steam is different. The Store isn't about selling Valve games anymore. It is about selling ALL the games. Valve would never pull the plug. That's the same as someone telling you that Walmart could decide to close all their stores (without being in any financial problems)
You should include the examples where buyers of GOG versions of the games don't have certain features because GOG doesn't have the amount of features that Steam has. (No man's Sky's Multiplayer comes to mind)
You can't get certain games on certain platforms but if it's on PC why not use Steam. It's not like Bethesda hasn't benefited from it in the past. Also Pepsi sucks anyway.
Yes, I'm sure Bethesda will add refunds, family sharing, controller input, big picture mode achievements, trading cards, leveling up system, Mac and Linux support, A streaming app for Android, streaming hardware, a friends list, forums, chat, summer/winter/spring/Christmas sales, and custom backgrounds very soon.
Maybe you should relax, I ain't here to shit on Steam. Was just legit curious. I use Steam extensively too. If it makes you feel better, I've been playing Quake Champions on Steam over their own launcher.
Hey, don't tell me about those stupid fees. I'm an enemy of the console platform nonsense and refuse to give them a dime. :P
Really, the only "feature" steam actually has that actually does me good is easy online connectivity, compared to earlier stuff like hamachi setups. But other platforms do fine nowadays there, too. So achievements, trading cards, all that doesn't really do anything for me - it actually just means extra clicks for me, with the stupid popup I don't care for.
Refunds are not a feature but a neccessity steam had to be forced to provide. That's not a selling point, that's a bare minimum to operate.
The rest...I never used family sharing, controller input is done by my controller by default without steam, I never used big picture mode, and achievements/trading cards/levelup systems are just bad retention gamification systems I would want to deactivate. They are actually negative points for me. Steam isn't a game, it's a library, and that's all it's useful for.
What competition? Are Bethesda interested in adding third party games to their launcher or did I miss something?
It's something that always seemed very suspicious to me. Until very recently with this fortnite vs Google thing you never hear a single word about the cut retailers or hardware makers take. It's always just about Steam.
Very suspicious.
Those other launchers don't have better features than Steam. There's nothing preventing them from doing that, sure, but the reality is that right now they are far worse. Other launchers don't give me support for the Steam Controller, or the ability to fully customize any other controller. Other launchers don't have easy mod capabilities like the Steam Workshop does. Other launchers don't have my entire list of friends, which I would have to duplicate if I wanted to play online with them. They are also missing community features, such as an activity feed where I can see what my friends have been playing recently and the screenshots they shared. They don't recommend me stuff based on my own and my friends friends' purchasing habits, nor do they feature user reviews. Most other stores don't let me refund games so easily, nor do they have regional prices which are favorable to me.
None of this is "I only like it my way". Or, actually, "my way" is the one that gives me the most bang for my buck. Bethesda client doesn't do any of this, as far as I know, so believing any game would be better there is baffling. And I won't entertain the argument about Steam being bad in 2004. This is 2018, if you're still arguing about what happened 14 years ago then I'd rather not waste my time.
Regardless of legal obligations, how is it NOT a selling point when they are among the few to actually have them?
You say it's the bare minimum, but wouldn't you rather shop at a store that does the bare minimum than a store that can't even be arsed to do that?
Are you sure? I really can't tell who's joking or serious anymore in this thread.
Oh I see. My comment was about the fact that you considered Steam and other launchers as "folders for your games". That's a bit too simplistic imo :)
It's because Steam is the platform that is most easily circumvented, and Steam is the LEAST essential platform. Android/Google, Apple, Sony, MS, and Nintendo's stores are also inherently linked to the hardware that developers/publishers are being allowed to use. 30% looks a lot more reasonable when the store-runner isn't just hosting the service for your game but also the tens or hundreds of millions of hardware units sold through to potential customers. The presence of Steam-based hardware doesn't compare to the others at all either.
Just because you don't use features doesn't make them useless.
E.g. I was just recently reminded how amazing Steam controller support (even for non-Steam controllers, by the way) is while playing La Mulana 2. Some crouch-movement sections -- with instadeath when you get up -- were a bit cumbersome, but I could just open the Steam (Big Picture Mode) overlay, quickly adjust my thumbstick response curve, and be on my merry way.
And it's clearly not a bare minimum or else everyone would be forced to offer it too. Companies much larger and much smaller routinely refuse refunds in this space. So something's up with this definition of minimum.
I think there has to be at least a dozen things that qualify for this. It's real cool to hate on their forums because, hey, some Nazi-fucks are taking a break from Youtube/Facebook/Reddit to post on an obscure sub-forum that nobody is checking, but I love their forums for troubleshooting. Or for finding really obscure fixes. Their forums are at the bottom of my list, but they're still awesome. Now this is something that I would qualify as being a bare minimum all platforms should have.
It's actually the opposite. There's no other store out there where the 30% makes more sense and is more reasonable. Steam is to this day unmatched on what they offer Devs for that 30%
A bare minimum that no other store but MS matches? Lmao
Refunds are factually a feature. And no, they weren't forced to offer it for the entire world.
And even for Australia & EU, Valve could easily do bare minimum and refund only non-working games. (like GOG does).
They were for the region I'm in, which is what matters to me.
Again, hypothetical features that don't affect an individual are not a selling point to that individual.
That's along the lines of what I think they should do as well. Give everyone a fair shake, but draw the line hard at theft and non-functional titles (Steam has a lot of software, so I'm fine with devs uploading stuff that isn't a game, so long as it has utility).
I did not know this. I hope they fix it, but thrashing their launcher is not what I would say is the right answer. Even Steam was shit when it started so at least give it a chance to get better. Bethesda having their own launcher can be both good and bad so lets wait and see.
In the end, I think the choice is easy. You either want to play Fallout 76 or not. If the Steam issue is enough to stop you from buying it then you weren't really that interested. At least that is how I see it.
Then at least give it a chance to get there by constructively giving criticism or feedback instead of shitting on it. Or at least advocate for Steam/Valve not taking as big a cut on their sales which probably influences a lot of these moves.
Bethesda makes the game, not Valve, not Steam. Steam has zero say in how this game plays or performs so I don't get why you think it would perform better there.
In the end, you either want to play it or not. Showing more "brand loyalty" to Valve only means you were not really interested in the game. Even if all of what you said is valid and are positives in Steam( I do not disagree) you can easily get that running on the new client with other tools quickly. That you don't want to tells me you don't care that much about 76.
It's ok you want to try and make a point, but Steam is not the only thing. As some others have said competition is good. Competition has made Origin into a much better product than it was when it launched because if it was just about getting their thing they would have never updated it.
I really want to play 76 and 30-secondnd install of a launcher(I think I already have) is not going to stop me enjoying the game I want.
It has been explained over and over again: this isn't competition.
Giving it a chance? Bethesda launcher has a been a thing for ages now, it's still barebones as fuck.
Origin being a better product now? Not really, they completely shat on their own client with their big UI overhaul last year.
I already bough the game. I've even stated multiple times that to me personally it's not a deal break but that doesn't mean I need to be happy about it not being on Steam. And trust me I can thrash their launcher and it won't hurts it's feelings. I can like and buy Fallout 76 and Still be bummed it's not on steam. I've done it for other games as well. It doesn't make me a valve fanboy nor does it mean I think competition is bad. But there is no competition in this case. The game will probably be on steam in a few months just like every other title of theirs it just means if I want to use it on my platform of choice I will eventually have to buy it twice.
I feel like people don't understand that Valve reducing their cut would be the actual anti-competitive move, as well as bad for prices on PC games in general.
Do you know where there are a metric ton of 3rd party sites that make a living by selling Steam keys at (often) lower prices than Steam itself? It's because devs/pubs can generate unlimited Steam-keys for free and sell them to those sites. Those sites also take 30%. They can give you better discounts by cutting into those 30% themselves.
If Steam suddenly only took 20% those sites would be forced to follow suit - because let's face it, if a dev/pub gets 80% on Steam, why would they sell Steam keys for only 70% to those other stores? This would then:
1) drastically reduce the margins of the 3rd party sites, maybe even make some of them go out of business
2) increase prices/worsen discounts on those sites (because you can't, for example, add an extra -25% discount and only keep 5% when you only get 20% to begin with)
It's not on me to give a chance to another client in hopes that it gets better eventually, it's on them to make it appealing. I'm the customer, they are the ones who have to convince me. I also don't care how big of a cut Valve is taking, it isn't my responsibility to care about the business side of game development. What I do care about is which store and client provides me with the most benefits and features. If you think that's "brand loyalty" so be it.
Being interested in a game has nothing to do with whether I will support it or not. For the record, I truly am not interested in Fallout 76, so I wouldn't grab it even if it was being released on Steam. But I did skip games that were sold on stores I disliked, such as Quantum Break on the Windows Store (which I grabbed after its Steam release). And I won't think twice about skipping Ori 2 if it only releases on the Win Store, despite loving the first one.
Thanks for the condescension, but I don't need 'education' about Steam, I've been using it continuously since 5 Dec 2004. Browsing the store is not an experience I enjoy anymore, outside of browsing through VR titles (which are still limited enough to digest) I go elsewhere to learn about games I want, and then type them directly into the search bar in Steam. Curation is important, and Valve seem to want to divest themselves of the effort or responsibility as quickly as possible.
I'm also not here to shit on Steam, I understand why people like/love it... but it's just a service people, it's not the damn messiah. I've been around long enough to remember when literally everything people are saying about these 'new' launchers was said about Steam:
But seeing as we're having the discussion, lets look at the post you quoted:
To be clear, I'm not PRO Bethesda.net launcher nor ANTI Steam, but let's get some perspective here...
Valve has been at this Steam thing for almost 15 years, and it was literally created to launch their own games (sound familiar?). Interestingly most of the features people now like in Steam took them a long time to implement. Big picture (9 years), Family Sharing (11 years), Greenlight (9 years - died after 5 years), Steam Direct* (14 years), Steam Workshop (9 years), Refunds** (12 years), OsX/Linux client (7/9 years), Custom controller support (13 years).
* claiming to still offer QC, yet the reality appears that if you have $100 and 30 days you can pretty much publish anything. I'll take 'arbitrary rejection' over that mess.
** this comes after 12 years of a 'no-refunds policy' and in the face of mounting litigation. Limited to 2 hrs of use. Forced by law in some regions to offer more (Australia is a good example).
Steam is 15 years old.
Origin is 5 (?) years old.
Epic Launcher is 3 (?) years old.
Bethesda launcher is 2 (?) years old.
Can I ask what amazingness Steam has added in the past two years? Oh, they've slightly copied Discord, cool.
I will give them Steam VR, they have done good work there... but so they should, they have a VR device for sale and they want your monies!
While we're dropping lazy links, here's one for your education: Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming
"Free" is disingenuous to say the least. Devs/Publishers pay for those one way or another (30% cut is one of those ways). Valve hasn't become redonkulously wealthy by giving things away.
Now, put yourself if Bethesda's shoes and ask yourself if it's profitable to outsource those functions to Valve, or do them in-house.
I'm NOT saying Bethesda will or can do as well, I'm saying they probably think they can do well 'enough' for a fraction of what they end up paying Valve currently.
I imagine this won't hurt sales all that much. People are going to still buy the game even if they are a Fallout fan
I would tend to agree but I think even Fallout fans are slightly apprehensive that this won't be a real Fallout game. At least not similar enough to Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas. That Fallout 76 is some sort of online survival game instead. The beta will be huge for swaying opinion. If it's just a griefers paradise I'm out.
Thanks for the condescension, but I don't need 'education' about Steam, I've been using it continuously since 5 Dec 2004. Browsing the store is not an experience I enjoy anymore, outside of browsing through VR titles (which are still limited enough to digest) I go elsewhere to learn about games I want, and then type them directly into the search bar in Steam. Curation is important, and Valve seem to want to divest themselves of the effort or responsibility as quickly as possible.
I'm also not here to shit on Steam, I understand why people like/love it... but it's just a service people, it's not the damn messiah. I've been around long enough to remember when literally everything people are saying about these 'new' launchers was said about Steam:
This represents the most impotent of arguments for poor service from clients in 2018.
In 2003 / 2004, back when many folks (myself included) were using dial up connections, and there were no other clients attempting digital sales and updating at even a small scale. If this is your cliched standard of what is acceptable from any new service in 2018 with the wealth of technologies, examples and options - good bloody luck to you.
Also let's not forget that even as Steamworks released, Steam was the only gaming digital distribution platform offering the following (and even today offers 0% on key generation, third party store and retail sales):
There is no such thing as "an effective monopoly". That would be "dominant market player". But below is a better illustration of why they aren't a monopoly, and an example of who are:
Because it's not a monopoly. You don't need to be on Steam to sell your game.
And this is why they are monopolies
Want to sell on iOS? Gotta sell through Apple. Want to sell on Google Store? Gotta sell through Google. eShop? Nintendo. PSN? Sony. Xbox? MS.
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Well I'm more than aware Steam takes the 30% cut like consoles, and Bethesda can avoid that with their own launcher...but they will objectively sell less total copies than if it was on Steam. So there is no guarantee Bethesda will make up the difference with the bigger cut. They don't even just have the issue of some people not liking multiple launchers or being will to buy into Bethesda's, it's that many people notice games through Steam on the best sellers section. Fallout 76 is also a multiplayer title, so getting all your friends to get a launcher will likely lose potential sales.
So I personally question what they're doing as a smart move, and think they could make more doing Ubisoft's method. Also, while Fallout, Elder Scrolls and maybe Doom are strong enough IPs to pull a good chunk of people over to their launcher, I think their other IP releases like Rage 2 will suffer on PC if they avoid Steam with all their future titles.
At this stage - hell on the first page, even - people just need to read, full stop. A lot of people just wade into Valve/Steam threads to make known they want to see them burn. Not to learn, not have a discussion, not to read other people's posts about how or why Steam is, but just "Fuck Steam!".
This particular point is irrelevant. If I go into market of automobiles and make this:
Will consumer buy that, or stick with established brands? I think no amount of me whining how Ford and such, had a huge headstart on me, will justify this.
The thing about people coming in late, they still have to compete with the veterans, they don't just get a magical pass, cuz they're new. There's also the fact that they get to take direct advantage of their competitor's experience. They don't need to do as much of Research and development, because they already ahve a basic blueprint of features to copy. THey get to use user feedback of existing platforms to literally learn on other's mistakes for free.
Eh, that article is not particularly good, and no one should ever think of any company as your friend by default. Multiple issues that article brings up are done in other platforms, and sometimes worse.
In general I would argue Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Apple and Google offer less value/features vs. Steam, and charge more for it. Really the only areas where those other platforms do better is protecting consumers from broken games, and even that Apple + Google still suck at too.
Valve isn't remotely perfect, but if they're not healthy for gaming...then all the others are a putrid death sentence. Only GoG and in some ways Microsoft (Play Anywhere, Game Pass) I'd put up there as a companies doing more in the past few years to become decent alternatives.