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Comment by wetpaws | Hacker News Reader

No matter how much I like Steam, breaking their monoculture would be objectively good.

I generally agree with this, although I worry about too many stores having exclusives. Steam doesn't have many exclusives, but Blizzard games are only on their launcher; new EA games are only on Origin; Bethesda looks to be exploring this route by having Fallout 76 only on their launcher.

I fear having to keep a separate launcher for every major publisher in the future.

I don't know if that's really a problem. When a AAA title that I want to play comes out, I will buy it regardless of what launcher it comes through. I'll download the installer straight from their site if that's what they want to do.

I think having something like Steam is great primarily for discovery and ratings.

I'd be game with the multiple storefronts if the library aspect were decoupled. If I bought Sea of Thieves in Microsoft Store and I bought Destiny 2 in Battle.NET, having a launcher that was able to download and install both of them with little configuration beyond linking to the MS Store/Battle.net accounts (not quite Movies Anywhere in that your library moves between services, but the launcher has discoverability and download capability for all of them), I'd be 100% fine with all of this. Instead, I find it to be a chore sometimes where if I have an urge to play a Uplay game and my password needs to be re-entered and I either need to locate it via 1password or if that isn't available, reset password and all that jazz.

Discord Library is an attempt to launch all games from a single application. You can also configure steam to be able to launch non-steam exes.

Not sure on Discord Library, but with Steam that is configuration and I can't uninstall the game and then install it again later from within Steam.

What would make me be a fan of being agnostic would take something similar to Movies Anywhere, where if I buy a movie on Vudu and it automatically shows up in my Movies Anywhere "library" or more tangibly, in my iTunes, Microsoft Movies & TV, and Play Movies libraries.

Prior to Disney Movies Anywhere, I would forego the deals on Vudu due to being yet another library to manage. After DMA, I started to buy Disney/Marvel/Pixar movies where the best deal was at. After Movies Anywhere, that expanded to titles that were part of Movies Anywhere.

Many of these have existed; I remember using The All-Seeing Eye and XFire. But the integration with stores is what makes these new launchers like Steam and UPlay valuable to game publishers.

Well, from a consumer's prospective, there's no compelling reason to spread out one's purchases (if the option exists to get them all in one place.) Having to download a separate launcher for each game isn't necessarily a deal breaker, but it's certainly not convenient either.

Imagine having to manage all your phone's apps through different stores, launchers, and website downloads. Sure, you can. But it's not as seamless as having all your apps in one place.

If a game is 15% cheaper or has a larger discount in a different store then why not buy from that one, and if I have to choose I will buy from GOG because of DRM free, if that is not possible and prices would be equal on store A and B I would buy from the store that gets more money to the developers because I want them to get enough money to continue the games.

Each launcher comes with a fixed cost of some sort - one more process checking for and downloading updates, sending analytics to yet another company, and potentially adding an attack vector. I think it's sensible to be reluctant to install software which shouldn't be necessary.

Maybe it's not a problem for you but it certainly is for others. Personally, I don't want to have to install a client (DRM) just to be able to download a game. Thus, I stick with stores like GOG instead and don't play anything that is limited to Steam and the like.

I understand your situation. I think there's no avoiding the fact that you'll be missing on big titles due to it. But the great thing is that new games are always around the corner and sooner or later some will fall into your net (GoG, etc.) Also, big titles sometimes end up on GoG-like fronts after aging.

It's arguable that you're actually missing something with most "big" titles. I randomly look at what EA and Ubisoft put out every few years... and it doesn't look like I'm missing anything by ignoring Origin and UPlay.

As much as I love Valve I really want them to wake up. Epic Games capturing a huge portion of their market share would seriously help that.

Maybe I'll see Half Life 3 in my lifetime after all.

They are trying to counter it with reducing %cut down already, so they are not completely oblivious to the problem.

I think Valve are keeping Half Life 3 for a rainy day (Given that, if they played their cards right, they could make significant $$$ just by pushing out a crappy game 'cos of the name)

There's already quite a few contenders, like GOG, Origin

GOG offers only DRM free games, so you remain with 2 big ones Steam and Origin, more competition will be better for all, more money to the actual developers.

I agree, I would also like developers to directly sell the games.

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