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).
This should be unacceptable. Launchers are bloatware.
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,
In-app purchases, mtx, DLC, and premium currency are also subject to Valve tax for games that are on Steam. Free to play means “enough people pay $200+ that we can get away with not selling it for $50”, putting it on Steam still means Valve gets a piece of the pie.
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.
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
Yeah I just mean the launcher application. I dunno, I had it way before Steam was even on my radar though.
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!
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
They’ve stated it will launch OW2 directly.
I expect the worst, and I am usually right. You are probably correct lol.
My immediate reaction was:
Pffffffffffff…get fucked!
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…
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 mean, this sounds suspiciously like something a company that makes the device that also owns and runs the biggest digital game store might do intentionally.
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.
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.
According to the steam page it says it only requires a battle.net account. Usually it says when another launcher is required.
Steam having a monopoly is not a good thing for anyone. Competition is good, even if the other launchers are a bit annoying.
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.
Steam already does that verification.
Yeah, but why should Steam be the only game in town? That’s a very dangerous monopoly.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
False. It’s a good thing for Gabe.
How is a shiti launcher a competition…
You want competition go to GoG or Epic… Or pirate
So let them distribute their launchers and storefronts, Valve couldn’t stop it. But it’s not monopolistic for Steam to say “if you want us to approve your product for our store, you can’t have the game launch into a pop-up for someone else’s store”.
Sadly for them, I stopped caring about their games quite awhile ago.
Back in 2011, Rob Pardo of Blizzard said of Diablo III’s always-online requirement, "I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that.”
I wasn’t a fan of that sentiment and I haven’t played a Blizzard game since.
“well we have a product already for the people who can’t afford the always online connection for Xbox one. It’s called Xbox 360.”
Lol what a stupid take it was, glad that Don Mattrick has been replaced.
All except Diablo. Diablo I is still my favorite Diablo game, though.___
The only bliz games i would consider playing lol
Never touched my Blizzard Account again after the sexual harassment and paygap scandal.
I’ve put 15 years of lifetime into my druid… It still hurts a little because I’ve loved WoW for a long time.
So Blizz switching to Steam couldn’t interest me any less.
Same after they kowtowed to China about Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Ditto. I won’t even give them usage stats on games I had previously purchased. Nothing to take to the board and say “we have returning users that we hope to convert into sales!”
Now I’m not gonna buy/play them on steam too
You and me both brother.
Glad they made this decision right after the worst patch in Diablo history
What happened with this Diablo patch? I’m skipping D4, but I love me some drama.
Same old story: buffs for the already-strong, nerfs for the fun stuff, kneecap progression and loot. All the stuff that pisses players off.
Diablo 2 is tied with “my favorite game I’ve ever played” and everything I hear about D4 makes me happy I skipped it. :c
Diablo 2 is my least favorite Diablo game, and you are right to skip D4 if you’re a massive fan of D2. D4 is much more like Diablo 1 and Diablo 3 had a baby.
Path of Exile may be up your alley tho! I strongly recommend that game for any D2 fan.
I’ve tried PoE! It was pretty good. Didn’t really scratch my itch, though. D2R was insanity good. I enjoyed D3 well-enough, but mainly at launch. Without trade and economy, I’m just decked out immediately and it gets boring.
Desperation
I love this! Finally there’s going to be actual statistics to see how much their games are actually dying.
I mean that’s cool an all, but why not mark the occasion by giving us Overwatch 1 back? That’d be real neato
Maybe it will come back as Overwatch classic.
“You think you want it but you don’t”
That’s optimistic thinking about OW2, people clearly wanted OW1 to continue.
I’m referencing another classic Blizzard gaffe
ah, wasn’t aware of that one. I never was a fan of Blizzard, back when they were in their hayday, I was mostly a console kid. I didn’t really get into pc games until late into XP era, and even then our family didn’t have that much money, so I rarely got new games… And when I was able to upgrade to a win7 machine, several years into its existence, Blizzard already had a somewhat tarnished reputation and I wasn’t really interested in their games anyway…
A great chance to buy all your classic OW1 skins again.
Blizzard had plans to dump the launcher shortly after D3 2.0 dropped. Then they backpedaled and where like no wait launcher is great! 🤷♂️
“Players on Steam will still have to connect Overwatch 2 to a Battle.net account, but they’ll have access to all of Steam’s amenities like their friends list and achievements.”
Lol. Okay then.
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It’s surprising because it’s Blizzard
Link to original news source on Blizzard.com https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23982127/overwatch-2-coming-to-steam-on-august-10
Link to the Steam Page https://store.steampowered.com/app/2357570/Overwatch_2/
Finally, so much people will join, that I’m sure someone will fix the Proton bug where the mouse pointer loses focus and you have to tab out and back in to regain focus after respawning. Hell, there are so many heroes that don’t require precise aiming, that it would even make it a playable game on the Steam Deck.
It has been fixed in protonGE
Does valve ever merge commits from PGE ?
People love a monopoly when it suits them
Steam is the best platform by far, and the only one with Linux support. It’s not Valve’s fault if other publishers aren’t even trying to make a good product.
People love things that benefit them as consumers and hate things that don’t, end of
It wouldnt be so notable if they just let me download the game by itself. If I have to download a fucking launcher every time then I want the games to be centralized atleast somewhat.
Seriously every fucking conpany a fucking launcher for a while there, even fucking bethesda had one.
I’m permanently annoyed with the launcher thing, too. I wish someone would come up with a software store app that 1) installed all the right crap so the game works right and 2) didn’t require you to open the app to open the game. Steam, for example, lets you install the game with a start menu shortcut, but if you don’t have Steam open, clicking on the start menu shortcut opens Steam first, then Steam launches the friggin’ game. Then there is the Bethesda launcher. Then Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher. There’s an Xbox launcher. Yadda yadda. I don’t know if their primary goal is monopoly as much as it is forcing you to open a program with a store in it so you see stuff to buy when you want to play a game. I think having a monopoly is secondary. Primary to them is forcing you to see that they have more shit for you to buy. I’m pretty sure Apple’s iTunes is the one that started it all. Let’s integrate shopping for music into the computer. Then, the phone. Now it’s not just music. It’s every friggin’ thing. People with shopping addictions must have a hard time if they’re also gamers or fans of other digital media.
I think you can choose your library as the startscreen when steam opens.
But I think you are right that the game should open without starting steam. I would guess it has something to do with DRM? because with GOG you can just download the game and start it from desktop without launcher.
Yes, your library can be the start screen when it opens. But first you must see the other window (that I always close without reading) telling you about today’s “special deal” or some game you might like to buy.
I doubt anyone will complain if Blizzard’s games are brought to other storefronts too.
I like Steam. Steam has the best features, best UI, good sales, and while they are not without faults (systems can stay unchanged for a long time!), they are run by a company that by and large respects its userbase.
I don’t mind if games are brought to Steam and any or all other storefronts. Put it on GOG, Windows Store, EGS, Itch.io, battlenet, Origin, Uplay… You name it, I approve of it going there also. If those other storefronts want me to use them, they need to provide a comparable or superior experience. GOG comes the closest, but its inability to get games in a timely or predictable manner, if at all, is too much of an obstacle for me.
best UI
Steam has one of the worst UIs I’ve ever seen lol. It looks and feels like a website from the early 2000s.
I find it infinitely more usable than all of the other storefronts I’ve used or seen. Interacting with my library is easy and straight forward. Buying games is easy and straight forward. When it opens I’m not inundated with ads for games I don’t care about, or ads at all.
Showing you games that are available on the store isn’t an “ad”. This mentality needs to go away. If you walk into a store, everything on the shelves isn’t an “ad”, it’s a product.
Functionality over form. This ain’t Apple
I’m ambivalent on console exclusives for this reason. It certainly drives sales for a console, but it’s so anti consumer
I feel like a game being made available on an additional platform is like the opposite of monopoly. If steam paid Blizzard for exclusive storefront rights and you could only get the games on PC from Steam id be inclined to agree.
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“Steam should be the only game launcher I use”
Indeed! Monopolies are great. Why have five stores when you can have a one-stop-shop?
It is the capitalism that is wrong.
You could stop at five or six stores… or just one.
Just stop already with the “capitalism bad” shit. The only negative thing about Lemmy so far. In all systems its the people who ruin it. End of story.
But that’s the point…? Pretty much every economic or political system “works” In theory. Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Dictatorship. What goes wrong is always the people.
Therefore, one should aim for a system where people have the least possible ways to screw everything up (not that I have a suggestion, sadly)
Apparently Steam is being sued for being a monopoly and abusing it, which is probably why they have to allow other companies games now.
Valve has like five games, and the hundreds of thousands of other games on Steam are from other companies, and they’ve had 3rd-party games since 2005.
Activision/Blizzard didn’t put their games on Steam so they can push their own store, it was to not make payments to a third party, and have high visibility of their own products (e.g. advertise CoD to Diablo players and vice versa). Of course, they miss out on the visibility of being on the largest game marketplace.
Correction: Activision)blizzard COULDN’T put their game on steam with their own store because of steams monopolistic TOS: which is what they got sued over.
EA have their games on Steam and Origin and have for years, Blizzard could (and will) have their games on Steam and Battle.NET. I’ve seen nothing to suggested they were unable to put their games on Steam, but rather decided it wasn’t in their interest, given Steam’s TOS and/or what they could gain from having their own marketplace.
Steam is being sued by Wolfire for antitrust, but there is no outcome in this suit yet. Unless you’re referring to a different suit I don’t know about.
Even if Valve loses this lawsuit, it doesn’t meant they have to allow any specific products from other companies on Steam. It just might mean a reduction in fees, or an inability to sign exclusivity deals (which are common across the industry, weather you like them or not, and I know I don’t). The Wolfire antitrust lawsuit is because they sell other companies games on Steam, to the point that they dominate the marketplace, not because they were stopping other companies from selling games on Steam.
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Isn’t Diablo 4 one of the top profitable games this year (if you include extra transactions), and are there deets on how much Overwatch 2 makes in a month?
Naturally gamers here don’t care, but I imagine much like Madden or Fifa the mainstream buys tons of Blizzard stuff.
When I did in home jobs decades ago there were quite a few people who played Warcraft and not even remotely familiar with other games let alone how to use their PCs
your last sentence still sums up wow players decades later
Oh, ha.
I do run a game store nowadays and it’s interesting to see diehard board games on message boards get confused why their favorite games sell so poorly compared to more mainstream titles. 😌
“Profitable” does not always mean “good”.
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The slogan since the antiquity
Yeah but it’s also the best Diablo game ever made. 1 is the only one even close.
Diablo 2 Resurrected is the best. Followed by Diablo 2 and then the original Diablo. Bottom 3 are Diablo 4 Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal.
We all have our takes.
Mine goes D4>=D1 > D3 >D2 (and I assume D2R)
No idea on Immortal from me, haven’t played it. Seems interesting but I’m weird about getting diablo on a phone
They made a really hot character in Overwatch though. I’ll give them credit for that.
I saw a comment the other day that said something to the effect of “shout out to r34 artists I didn’t even know overwatch was a real game until 2 years after it came out”
Dude, Rule 34 artists made me utterly obsessed with the character and I still have never played either of the Overwatch games.
In fact, I know I would probably even hate playing as Widowmaker since she’s a sniper and I am garbage in that role lol.
Which one, specifically?
Check his username lol
Widowmaker. Hence the reason for my username
How can I be so blind lol
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Man I was really hyped for Diablo 4 but I think I just finished act 3 recently and I’m already bored. I don’t know what it is that makes the game so soulless to me
I agree but I’ve been around from Diablo 1 original launch and in my fourties now so I was just chalking it up to me growing out of it (“it” being Diablo and maybe gaming at large). I’m really bummed about it though because I expected a completely different feeling, even buying my console largely for it. Diablo 2 Resurrected cheated me, maybe out of nostalgia. I found that one really fun and thought D4 would learn D3 lessons and be amazing. But I barely feel anything playing through its campaign. It just feels like work. That I’m following a carefully planned treadmill and pacing with the monster scaling and all. In a grey world with generic monsters. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s the game, maybe it’s both, but it’s made me finally begin disregarding Blizzard Entertainment games…
Its dead after the story. They nuked endgame content imo.
Was not happy with the patch notes but signed in with my 4 friends. We beat the start of the new season stuff, then immediately saw how shit the season was about to be.
Basically after 2 short missions, you do NMD only. Helltide is worse than useless, which sucks because it was my favorite solo casual grind for endgame.
All 5 of us were off the game within an hour. We decided to go back to playing old games. 2 of us went back to playing Diablo 2 lol.
Diablo 4 is hot garbo rn.
How much of that was just nostalgia and hype though. How much staying power does it actually have.
D2R was amazing and D4 has a huge player base.
Awww, they are such a good guys. They are doing this for us and they want to make sure they respect user’s choice. Totally it’s not the fact Overwatch2 is not earning anything and other games have been in decline since Activision merger.
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With ActiBlizz it’s all about money. Just look at D3 auction house. They purposely dropped wrong items to players in order to force them to use auction house. When it was found out they backtracked. But it’s always been like that. Same with WoW and mounts. Etc. They keep milking everything.
I have never thought I’d see the day when I think MS is the good guy in a merger.
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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
That’s what happened to Destiny 2 from battle.net to steam, expansions and all.
But different sitch I guess, Activision was selling the IP
