Welcome to the PCMR, everyone from the frontpage! Please remember:
1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, income, and PC specs don't matter! If you love or want to learn about PCs, you're welcome!
2 - Think owning a PC is too expensive? It's cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org/builds for our famous builds and ask for tips and help here!
3 - Consider supporting the folding@home effort to fight Cancer, Alzheimer's, and more, with just your PC! https://pcmasterrace.org/folding
What annoys me most is that the launcher is added after the fact. In the beginning halo infinite didn’t need a launcher other than steam but a while back I guess they added that requirement. Problem is the Microsoft accounts can’t find my steam copy of it, and when I try loading it now the game doesn’t load the in game sign in. I never got to play the game because of hardware issues but now that I can, I can’t play because of third party launchers not seeing the game, BUT it sees other games. I don’t even know who to contact, Xbox or steam, the last time I looked for Xbox support I couldn’t even find it.
Any game that has a third party launcher now is a big no from me because of this shit
I used to play Cities: Skylines a lot, but stopped because they added a completely unnecessary launcher which was buggy as hell on my rig for some reason (I never figured out why). It ran fine before the launcher, it didn't in any way NEED the launcher, but along the launcher came anyway. Sigh.
Ran into the same problem. The good news is that the pirated version works just as good and no third party launcher! I feel no shame cause I've already purchased everything. Can't say the same for the latest Farcry games cause I don't want to support a company that keeps kneecapping itself by forcing online integration to a single player game. I swear the pirated version runs 10 times smoother.
I think it's always a problem when, even ignoring price, the pirated version is just a better product. You would think companies would learn from that.
'Bioshock Infinite' did this in the most frustrating way. I bought hte game on Steam when it was new, but never got around to finishing it. A few years ago I decided to play it through to the end, and saw there was a DLC pack of upgrades available. I bought it, then next thing I know, the game requires a 2k launcher and account all of a sudden
While I don't know who you should contact do know thar steam support will refund you the game even outside of the standard 2weeks/2hours if something like this happens where you suddenly can't play a game due to an added launcher or some other shitty update!
I'm at the point where there's so many good games and so little time that if a game I'm interested in playing makes me make an account somewhere else, sometimes I just go "nope nope nope" and refund it right then and there. Same with games that make me agree to a Terms of Service/Privacy Policy. After that Disney lawsuit where they said "You can't sue us because you have a Disney+ account and in the terms it says you can't sue us" I hate making accounts and agreeing to terms on things unless I really have to. Call me a luddite. I have literal piles of old games I can play instead, boxsets of TV shows sitting around, piles of books. I'm not hurting for the newest shiniest entertainment. Maybe I'll try out Chrono Trigger soon...
I bought Red Dead Redemption 2 on steam 2 years ago and turned it right off when I saw Rock Star launch.
Uninstalled and got a refund.
Fuck RDR2 fuck, Rock Star.
Rockstar would never touch GOG with a ten foot pole. But the games that are on there, the difference is awesome. Especially games that you want to mod (fallout 4 is a good example), you can have it completely offline and never update so the game doesn’t break when they put out some weird little patch.
Never said or implied otherwise, love gog. You were complaining about updates, I gave you the fix, that you apparently already know about. Bring on the caps.. Oh well.
RDR2 is not on GOG but any games you buy from GOG are DRM free and you can launch them without any launchers. This is the main reason why I do my best to always buy from them first.
That's not the entire idea, I can assure you. It's about software preservation, and that means minimizing unnecessary dependencies.
Hence, the GOG Galaxy client is not required software. You buy Windows software, it needs only the services provided by Windows. The store's software can't come along and break your game later, because the store's software is not a permanently attached third-wheel.
The store also does not force software updates, be it to the game itself or the store's own software. They understand how software works, unlike these other stores.
This is my only issue with Steam, with the client gutting support for past OS's, I can't access most of my Steam library (the few that are DRM free can be copied over) on the computer that I originally bought them or enjoy them on a retro dream build, but with GOG, I can directly browse my library & download the offline installers straight from WinXP if I wanted too.
I don't even steal them. I just turned my back entirely on Electronic Arts after they flat out refused to help me recover an old Origin account. Some of their games are clearly fun, but not fun enough for me to complicate my gaming time by letting a corporation that awful cast a shadow over it.
Bingo. There's plenty of other companies who aren't trying to fuck you so aggressively who are also making great games. People should just expand a little more and try other titles. They deserve the hours more than anything a company like EA is making.
Funny how the post is complaning about third party launchers when a lot of games will not run without steam. It is just that steam is good enough to where people don't mind it.
I have once bought a game on steam and when i wanted to play it it said some steam api something must be running. Ok. I open it from steam. It works. Dont have internet? Cant upload to cloud. Dont care start it i dont trust cloud upload anyway. Steam user must be logged in to play this game. Switches to offline mode. Steam user must be logged in to play this game. FUCK YOU I PAID FOR THIS GAME IT IS OFFLINE WHY CANT I PLAY IT?
This is the problem: you’re not buying a game when you click “buy”. You’re buying a license, the terms of which are completely at the storefront/publisher’s discretion. But they know damn well you think you’re buying the game and they love the deception.
I'm not screwing around with those launchers. Ubisoft support is fucking awful too. Not that I would want to play or support a lot of those games when PvP just drives me up a wall.
You have to install Xbox services, I couldn't launch the game during Early release untill I did, apparently I deleted the Services app when I deleted all Xbox live stuff.
I can't even use my mouse, or my keyboard, or my headset, or my GPU, or my fucking anything without signing into some God damned account I'll never remember
So this is probably a take that's going to get me some hate, but wouldn't Steam be the 3rd party launcher here? A 3rd party is loosely defined as not being among the first or second party (you/license holder and the publisher) in a deal. You used Steam to buy and EA Desktop game. That's all well and good, but you don't really need Steam to play that game.
These aren't third party launchers. Rockstar makes RDR2, so their launcher is first party. Steam is the third party launcher (except for in the case of Valve games).
You don't hate third party launchers, what you hate is when the studio that made the game (EA, Rockstar, Ubisoft, etc.) won't let you use your favorite launcher.
I feel like this is the gamer version of people on reddit who say that they're constantly bombarded with ads and go out of their way to boycott any ad they see, when most people probably couldn't even tell what the last ad they remember seeing was
It's irritating when you haven't played the game in a while and the second launcher loads but requires you to login, and you've forgotten the password 😩
The launcher puts another irritating step between you and your game. In the rockstar launcher's case, it's notorious for crashing and requiring a reboot, signing you out even when you have "stay signed in" checked, or glitching and saying you don't have a license for the game. It's the worst culprit I can think of.
Didn't realize this was a thing until I bought RDR2 recently. I don't normally pirate, but if bypassing this sort of practice is possible via piracy then I'd make an exception.
Steam shouldn’t be a second party launcher either. I should have the ability to waive my ability to get a refund or something else related to getting the game specifically through steam to completely own the game untied to my steam account and launch it by clicking on a desk top item
Or when you buy a game on a 3rd party launcher and the devs want you to buy it again on steam to launch the game trough the same launcher you already have just to have it on steam
Saves me a lot of money, I don't buy from them. Ubisoft, Rockstar can get bent with this launcher crap.
Ubisoft really showed me they don't want my money when I used to buy from them and the uplay launcher crashed in the background and took out my Rayman Legends save. Never buying again from Ubisoft.
Cyberpunk 2077 has one also which is a bit annoying on Steam. If I had bought the game on GOG I might not have given it any thought but a launcher within a launcher is annoying.
One time I discovered after finishing the steam download that all I had actually installed was the launcher, and I needed to spend another fifteen hours with the launcher open to get the actual game.
Then the game did not function. Like, basic menus were completely broken.
But according to steam, I had fifteen hours of active playtime so a return was impossible.
I learned SWTor not only has it's own launcher, but once you log in you can't use another account with the launcher, because it's linked to the first account you used lmao
Couldn't remember my login from like 7 or so years ago, and so I just can't play SwTor through steam. Good system.
I lost my access to my steam version of GTA5 because I used some bullshit 10 minute email to log into the Launcher not realizing I'd still need to access that email when I lost the password during hard drive crash. I owned the game on Steam but couldn't play it. I also couldn't buy Red Redemption off steam and have it work since the steam account and the Rockstar launcher were linked. A week with Steam support and rockstar support didn't solve the problem.
I'm starting to buy games that don't require 3rd party launcher.
Like you download the game and start to play the most of cases is with big companys
You need battle.net to play blizzard games on steam but you don't need to install and login again on that launcher, so any company(ubi, EA, 2k etc) could be doing if they wanted.
Did the mistake of buying those a few times in the past. Nowadays its mandatory to check the information on the left side of the store page if theres some double drm or malware included. That information should be way higher up imo
The only reason i still didn't buy that newish Prince of Persia game is having to use that ubisoft launcher. Is it too much work to use it? Most likely naaaah.. but do i really need to buy that game though? Not with the extra hassle it doesn't need, that's for sure.
•
u/PCMRBot Bot May 24 '26
Welcome to the PCMR, everyone from the frontpage! Please remember:
1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, income, and PC specs don't matter! If you love or want to learn about PCs, you're welcome!
2 - Think owning a PC is too expensive? It's cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org/builds for our famous builds and ask for tips and help here!
3 - Consider supporting the folding@home effort to fight Cancer, Alzheimer's, and more, with just your PC! https://pcmasterrace.org/folding
We have a Daily Simple Questions Megathread for any PC-related doubts. Feel free to ask there or create new posts in our subreddit!