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0x457

> Screwing around with them is a losing game that no one has historically ever won.

What universe do you live in?

- Broken games still pre-ordered

- marginal updates sold at full price

- double/triple-dipping with microtransactions and battle passes

- DRM still [predominant and still hurts performance

- every publisher with more than one game has their own launcher (usually shitty and brings no value)

- rootkit as anti-cheat

- offline game that require online connectivety

- online services get shutdown

- LAN multiplayer is a thing of a past

What did games exactly won?

- Paid skyrim mods? It's back.

- MS game sharing thing that rendered GameStop business model useless? IMO a mistake, MS was onto something there.

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> every publisher with more than one game has their own launcher (usually shitty and brings no value)

I view this as a positive -- it's not feasible to maintain a build for every game and storefront's DRM/auth (unless you go DRM-free, which is the ideal but not something publishers and developers do on release). A launcher is the layer that sits between -- the games are written to auth against a launcher, and the launcher has builds for each storefront.

Otherwise you're just further entrenching Steam as the de facto monopoly on sales.

My problem with launchers other than steam and galaxy from GOG: usually shitty and brings no value.

Paradox launcher is alright for example, it adds value in form of mod preset managment and ability to launch straight into saved game.

What ever is in dune: awakening" exists just to tell me about their other games and as a result make game launching longer than it needs to be. Not only that it adds A LOT of friction when I launch it via Remote Play with a controller.

Point is: if you make a launcher make sure it adds any value and not just an advertisementr billboard.

As for store fronts: steam by far has the most functionality among PC storefronts.

> - Broken games still pre-ordered

Only because new population enters the market.

I pre-ordered a game once. F1 2010. Since then, I have *never* pre-ordered anything.

I also opted out from any game that required a rootkit to play.

LAN gameplay is still a thing in the simracing world.

Again, this only continues because of new players. Any burned player will not fall for the same trick twice.

> Only because new population enters the market.

Yeah, not. I'm not saying is the same people pre-order the same games, but there is not THAT much new population influx.

> LAN gameplay is still a thing in the simracing world.

It's a niche within a niche. Also, I remember a guy named Max had a lot to say about the current state of sim-racing.

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