I guess they’re giving up on convincing people to download their launcher.
Not gonna play them if they include their launcher after game is started from Steam lol.
EDIT: I am very happy to hear that everyone hates them. EA as well as Rockstar has shown that their launchers are shit. On Steam Deck EA games often fail to start at all due to EA launcher updates, and Rockstar launcher takes around 3-5 minutes to start a fucking game (which should start instantly).
I don’t understand what the point of a blizzard launcher is - steam is already a launcher.
Ads. Ads and data harvesting.
yeah, plus steam takes 30%
The games are coming to Steam. Even if the launcher is there, Steam still gets the 30%
IDK what your comment is about, but its not a coincidence the first blizz game coming to steam is free to play,
The Battle.net launcher pre-dates Steam though, doesn’t it?
Edit: guess not. Steam came out in 2003. I hadn’t heard of it until well after the Battle.net launcher came out in 2013. 🤷🏻♂️
Battle.net actually launched in 1996, though the client as it existed back then would hardly be recognizable as a launcher/storefront today. The modern client launched in 2009.
Yeah I just mean the launcher application. I dunno, I had it way before Steam was even on my radar though.
Battle.net is dead and gone. The launcher has nothing to do with battle.net and everything to do with attempting to harvest as much data as possible, bonus if you run it in the background without playing any of their games.
I was wondering why it sucked so much ass. This explains it
This should be unacceptable. Launchers are bloatware.
Do we know if it’ll work this way ? It sounds so stupid but I wouldn’t put it past them
Pretty sure it either allows to login within game, or launches their own (micro?) launcher first, where you have to login with Blizzard account and then starts the game.
Pretty much all “steam games” that are primarily available elsewhere run this way using mini launchers…
Removed by mod
Except its not. Valve has gone out of their way to make sure other peoples’ games and launchers work, even if they’re not selling directly through Steam. Look at the Proton patch notes if you’re not just being a conspiratorial asshole and actually care about the facts.
My immediate reaction was:
Pffffffffffff…get fucked!
Battle.net launcher can literally be closed after the game is running. It even has a setting to automatically do so. Why would they pull this sort of bullshit, I have no idea
Why would they pull this sort of bullshit, I have no idea
They aren’t, they said that the Steam versions of Blizzard games will not require the Battle.net launcher at all.
Each time battle net launcher opens,it displays a popup banner for cosmetics, warcraft stuff, overwatch stuff etc. They get free ads in your eyeballs.
No way they will let it go. It will be steam -> battle.net -> game
I expect the worst, and I am usually right. You are probably correct lol.
They’ve stated it will launch OW2 directly.
Mike Ybarra confirmed on the bird site that these games will launch directly through Steam, no bundled launcher nonsense.
confirmed
I’ve heard OW2 has dropped PVE while it was confirmed that PVE will exist lol.
It was not just “confirmed” - that was whole point of OW2.
Lmao yeah
That’s awesome!
I’m not a hardcore gamer but I’m a fan of cloud gaming, first Google Stadia (rip) and later Gforce Now. And Gforce Now supports Steam games so the more games available in the Steam-catalogue, the better.
Well, not all Steam games. Funny thing is, launcher isn’t even totally the barrier to getting a game in GFN; UPlay and Epic have games available in GFN as well. Whenever I’m away from home and decide to use cloud, I mostly end up playing Ubisoft games through them.
Pretty obviously trying to pull an “Apex Legends” to try and save the flailing Overwatch 2.
I really wish Steam would put their foot down and stop these launchers. They are nothing but a nuisance and add no value for the customer.
EDIT: Just to be clear, when EA Play joined Gamepass there wasn’t a separate launcher when you went to play an EA game on the Xbox. Steam could make this work with them and the other companies. They have enough pull to make this work - it would be greatly welcomed.
Steam having a monopoly is not a good thing for anyone. Competition is good, even if the other launchers are a bit annoying.
This isn’t a monopoly issue. Other launchers exist. Most of the games on Steam are available on these other launcher, yet people still prefer Steam.
I can only speak for myself, but I prefer Steam because it’s more customizable so I can set it to open to my library first instead of a rotating ad banner, the storefront ads are not intrusive and can be easily ignored, and steams remote play is something that no other launcher offers.
In fact, I am not sure what the other launchers offer that they excel at over Steam.
Competition is good, even if the other launchers are a bit annoying.
What does “competition” between companies really mean? It means they are competing for customers. Annoying me with shitty launchers is the opposite of competing. Make things cheaper, offer better services and more features. This is competition. Steam (and GOG) is the only one actually “competing” here. And look what happened? Microsoft, Ubisoft, Blizzard… one by one they fall to Steam because they simply cannot comprehend this fact.
At least Valve isn’t a public company and beholden to shitty investor politics though, so I am more okay with Steam than… literally any other game launcher.
Plus they’re the only launcher that fully supports Linux, so until that changes I am rooting for Steam.
Having a monopoly is not good… I just wish others wouldn’t completely ignore Linux users… Valve/Steam on the other hand is seriously pushing it forward which makes me very much biased toward them.
Yeah. While them having the most successful platform for distributing games can be troublesome in the monopoly sense, I’m still sunny to them just because of their support for the Linux community.
Steam has competition by way of Epic, EA, Blizzard. Steam is just the far superior product and people don’t want to change
Yeah but like, launcher isn’t a market. Game Store is the market they’re in. I’ll happily buy a game from a different store if thats the only place it’s offered or even if it’s just cheaper there. The annoyance is when they want to be Steam. I don’t want to be forced to download another launcher to play a game. If you want what Steam has, create a launcher that offers better services than Steam.
But most games aren’t DRM-free, so the launchers are necessary to verify your account and ownership of the game. Otherwise every store would be GOG, and most publishers won’t use it.
GOG and Humble are really good stores though
Gog is reportedly failing and Humble’s success is because they’re selling Steam keys, so they still depend on them.
Steam already does that verification.
Yeah, but why should Steam be the only game in town? That’s a very dangerous monopoly.
That’s an argument for Steam not being the only game store, it doesn’t make much sense after you already bought it from Steam and the game requires an alternate launcher to be installed.
But on that other matter, I think you have a point in theory, but EA, Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard don’t seem to have any interest in providing a better service or unique benefits. Steam’s dominance is overly maligned when it’s the only one where the company actually earned its place, by providing a better service.
And even then Steam doesn’t even have as much of a monopoly over PC games as console manufacturers actually do over each of their platforms. But since it is by design that consoles only support the platform-maker approved games, it doesn’t even register in people’s minds as a monopoly. As if they were never supposed to control these devices they have bought.
What are you even talking about? It’s an application that launches a game. It adds nothing of value to the process of opening the game. How is it less of a monopoly to use a launcher to launch a launcher to launch a game?
It’s not just a launcher, it’s a storefront. Uplay, EA-whatever, and Rockstar Launcher are all storefronts where you can buy the games those companies make.
The launcher itself is a UI which lets you “launch” the game. Steam for example, is a launcher and a storefront, as is Uplay.
Having all your games in a single launcher/storefront is bad, as it gives a single company entire control over your games, and monopoly pricing.
Also remember that Steam takes a 30% cut, which is totally unnecessary, and is what directly caused giants like Ubisoft and Rockstar to make their own storefronts. Because why pay a 30% tax just for selling your game, this ain’t the 1990s anymore with CD-ROM pressings.
Fuck Steam and it’s monopolistic, 30% rent seeking bollocks.
There’s plenty of others. GoG and Humble come to mind as the major alternatives.
Yeah, and GoG is fantastic and I’m so glad it exists. We need more DRM-free storefronts without launchers for sure.
Launchers are a solution to DRM, not the solution. The way today’s modern market is, it’s understandable that some gamers have forgotten that there used to be games you bought directly from the publisher’s website. DRM was done by asking you to sign into your account before launching the game, a lot of games still make you do this today. There’s also the tried and true method of phoning home with a product key for DRM as well. There’s no shortage of ways to be independent, very few companies are interested in doing so because Steam is convenient.
Aside from the fact that logging into every game separately would be a nightmare, it would only work for online games and be a major hassle for developers because it means they also need to compensate for not having a launcher on things like automatic updates and deployments. It’s not really a solution either side would like.
I’m getting downvoted hard but people are forgetting that a game store not having a launcher is suicide. GOG tried that, started bleeding money, caved in and made their own launcher. Steam also has 20 years under their belt so saying worse launchers shouldn’t be allowed to exist would just kill competition entirely.
How is a shiti launcher a competition…
You want competition go to GoG or Epic… Or pirate
Yeah, steam is good, but it can get bad if they sit around for too long and get fat. The threat of others is a good thing.
I just wish the competition gave any attention to Linux support. GOG Galaxy has been out idk how long, they sell Linux games, and still not even a launcher.
False. It’s a good thing for Gabe.
i love how polarizing the votes on this are, you aren’t wrong. gog is a huge competitor but they have their own launcher too which is annoying
According to the steam page it says it only requires a battle.net account. Usually it says when another launcher is required.
Haven’t you always dreamed of having a launcher to launch your launcher which launches the actual game? Seriously who approves these choices
This’ll be nice. I refused to play blizz games based on their conduct with women and I didn’t want their launcher on my pc.
Ditto.
A tip for others in the same position - I recently discovered that, for me, Risk of Rain 2 is the game that made me stop missing Overwatch 2.
That and their response to “Free HK” really pissed me off.
I don’t think I remember that. What was their response?
They banned a player from tournament play in Hearthstone for saying “Liberate Hong Kong” in a post-match interview.
Also took away his winnings
That’s lame.
The only good game that Blizzard has released is Diablo 3, in my opinion.
Also, they are a shitty company that I do not plan to support on Steam.
I mean, people seem to have liked the Diablo 2 remaster, along with both StarCraft games. So I’m excited to check those out.
Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, Star Craft, Diablo, Diablo 2…
Personally, I had never been into Warcraft or Starcraft. For me Diablo 3 is the peak, I like how well it is optimised for the consoles. It is my preference.
I love this! Finally there’s going to be actual statistics to see how much their games are actually dying.
I’m sure their games will still use their bnet DRM, d4 especially. Seems like a cheap cash grab, but what else to expect from actiblizz
You still have to use Battle.net, so that’s an absolute no-go from me.
Glad they’re giving folks options though.
You need a battlenet login, but not the launcher
Doesn’t the launcher also double as their anti cheat system? I thought the launcher also managed Warden
Warden works on Battle.net the server not the launcher. Very few games have Warden.
I don’t think so, but also I thought most of ow2 anticheat was serverside
The company that makes Doom lets you use steam and allows you to transfer your data.
Microsoft.
i’d be okay with having diablo on my steam library. too bad i bought them all on battle.net…
If it goes how Bethesda did you’ll migrate your library over
I really hope that when Microsoft buys Activision that they bring back Overwatch 1 and put it on Steam. I played OW1 pretty constantly for over 3 years and was having fun with it until the day they shut it down. I played OW2 for less than two weeks and haven’t touched it since release. I can respect that some people prefer OW2, but for me it’s not even close.
Not happening.
Lol the desperation of a flailing bad company. Sorry Blizzard, winter is over.
Gimme steam support for D4 so I can get full compatibility on my steamdeck
