Another useless launcher enters the fray.

This is a revision of the Social Club Rockstar has been using since GTAIV. Big difference now is that its multiple games and not just a game-by-game thing.
 
Master_shake_ said:
jesus christ how many of these stupid things do we need?
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Why don't you ask Jeeves?


I installed it this week because I did a new install and Rockstar is not very good at freely letting you know how to re-install a game (if you don't want to use a disc). So I installed it. I already had a GTA V install that carried over from the old install and it didn't recognize the install using the "scan system", nor did it allow me to tell it where to look. It also made no attempt to skip files when I pointed it to install to the directory where GTA V already was. Had to re-download the entire 80GB or whatever it is now. And then after all that, Scripthook V didn't work....so I didn't play the game.
 
Preparation for the imminent RDR2 release no doubt.

Can't fault any publisher or developer for wanting to sell their first party titles direct though.

Where it turns people off is if they start trying to block third party games from being sold on other stores, by bribing the publisher to only sell the game on their store (I'm looking at Epic, which would be disastrous if they start a trend and other stores start doing this - a race to the bottom where we all lose).
 
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odditory said:
Preparation for the imminent RDR2 release no doubt.
Can't fault any publisher or developer for wanting to sell their first party titles direct though.
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Haven't you heard? Red Dead Redemption 2 is gonna be an Epic Games Store Exclusive.
 
iv"e got so many launchers now i can not tell what the back ground screen looks like though it"s set to change every day.
 
Best launcher of all launcher 's ever because of this, my retail copy of unusable Max Payne 3 is now downloadable.MAGIC!
Desktop-Screenshot-2019-09-17-19-34-06-84-2.png
 
Most of these launchers suck. GOG sucks, laggy and slow. Terrible launcher. Bethsada, similar but better. Uplay, getting better. EGS is like Uplay but less feature rich.

Steam is the best, Origin is good enough.

Really getting annoying having to use all of these.
 
Jim Kim said:
The great thing about launchers is you can set them not to launch and launch them only when you need them. magic

Plus this one comes with a FREE copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on PC woot:D
https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/rockstar-games-launcher?
https://hardforum.com/threads/free-copy-of-grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-on-pc.1986734/
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The best thing about launchers is that you can simply not download them or purchase the games that require them. Whatever you choose, it's your time, money, and PC.
 
I mean they gave me a free game.

I’m just not gonna use epic unless they get some game I really want to play. I agree though this is getting ridiculous. I give blizzard a pass since I have a childhood fondness for them.

But this is stupid.
 
Flogger23m said:
Most of these launchers suck. GOG sucks, laggy and slow. Terrible launcher. Bethsada, similar but better. Uplay, getting better. EGS is like Uplay but less feature rich.

Steam is the best, Origin is good enough.

Really getting annoying having to use all of these.
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Because these are not launchers but storefronts pretending to be launchers.

Edit: Including Steam. If Steam had actually continued to make games, perhaps this would not be happening?
 
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Comixbooks said:
Bad idea unless they are doing it to prevent moding of games.
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Like online? Cause the only reason I play Rockstar games is for the SP mods. And FiveM has also come quite a long way.


The launcher did temporarily disable offline mode, and it did update GTA V breaking the mods.

Thankfully Steam allows users to download any version of the game they want via the console. If I didn't own GTA V on Steam, I'd be far better off pirating it than owning it exclusively on the RGL; as that would make modding it a nightmare.
 
Can’t you just run scripts to open the games? A few years ago I had everything setup in Kodi (XBMC) where it would open and close games without ever messing with the launcher.

I know Epic or whatever is awful, it literally downloads entire games and when you launch it says oh sorry you need Ubisoft’s launcher and forces you to use that, then download all the files again.

meanwhile the Epic launcher sits there taking up huge amounts of space and acts as a middle man for whatever reason.
 
I support whatever means give a higher percentage of game sales' profits to the developers themselves.

And yeah, I know it's going to the publishers largely, but the devs are far more likely to get an increased cut from them than some sort of middleman.
 
inbedwithhomer said:
I support whatever means give a higher percentage of game sales' profits to the developers themselves.

And yeah, I know it's going to the publishers largely, but the devs are far more likely to get an increased cut from them than some sort of middleman.
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Not if people get sick of "more launchers" after having to add the 20th damn launcher and simply decide they no longer need to bother with the games with additional launchers. Temporary and marginal increase in profits for the short term leading to higher costs in the long term and fewer people purchasing games.

There's a reason why Steam takes the cut from the purchase price. It's not pure profit. It's also the long term requirement of having to keep the games on the service with the maintenance of any sort of updates or bug fixes as well as the long term bandwidth which has to be paid when someone decides to redownload the game for the tenth time ten years down the line.

There's a lot more to running a service such as this successfully. Personally, I'm wondering how long it's going to be before some of these short sighted services close down and how the companies shutting them down will handle it. When they shut down are they going to give you a code to whatever service they decide to sell the games on again? Or are they just going to leave you high and dry and require you to purchase the game again on another service?
 
The worst launchers were the 2nd and 3rd after Steam. They created the Launcher-verse and now we live in it. It's mostly fine - except that you can make friends in one and then easily lose them because most people have a different name on each platform. There are some halfway solutions to that, but it still sucks.

On the other hand, not having a firewall between all your gaming and social media sucks in a different way.

Slightly OT, but I keep my gaming well away from any social media because I am slightly paranoid that I might take a 2hr lunch to play some new game and the platform might rat me out. Some day, some employer is going to get wise and find a way to monitor that part of your life....
 
I don't really care if every game has its own launcher. The only inconvenience is that if I don't use them for a while they force me to log in again, or start updating, it's like the consoles.

1 launcher or 100 who cares, as long as it is not the EGS.
 
westrock2000 said:
Why don't you ask Jeeves?


I installed it this week because I did a new install and Rockstar is not very good at freely letting you know how to re-install a game (if you don't want to use a disc). So I installed it. I already had a GTA V install that carried over from the old install and it didn't recognize the install using the "scan system", nor did it allow me to tell it where to look. It also made no attempt to skip files when I pointed it to install to the directory where GTA V already was. Had to re-download the entire 80GB or whatever it is now. And then after all that, Scripthook V didn't work....so I didn't play the game.
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I managed to avoid re downloading the entire game using the GTAV setup tool....for future reference.
 
were close to be back to 1 launcher per games , wich isnt a bad thing.
 
I'll fully admit I have launcher fatigue. I don't buy Ubisoft or EGS (or anything else) titles because of it. Plus GoG is my preferred store now since I can actually download the games and if they go down I'll still have all the installers.
 
SmokeRngs said:
Not if people get sick of "more launchers" after having to add the 20th damn launcher and simply decide they no longer need to bother with the games with additional launchers. Temporary and marginal increase in profits for the short term leading to higher costs in the long term and fewer people purchasing games.

There's a reason why Steam takes the cut from the purchase price. It's not pure profit. It's also the long term requirement of having to keep the games on the service with the maintenance of any sort of updates or bug fixes as well as the long term bandwidth which has to be paid when someone decides to redownload the game for the tenth time ten years down the line.

There's a lot more to running a service such as this successfully. Personally, I'm wondering how long it's going to be before some of these short sighted services close down and how the companies shutting them down will handle it. When they shut down are they going to give you a code to whatever service they decide to sell the games on again? Or are they just going to leave you high and dry and require you to purchase the game again on another service?
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I mean if I get to play any game I want and the developers get a higher share, what are my worst-case scenarios personally?

So maybe when all these launchers get frustrating I'll have to generate shortcuts for each title I have installed and put them in a folder? Or some disk space usage when storage is just getting exponentially cheaper?

I just don't get why so many people seem to want a walled garden like on console. This is the PC. We have all the choices. I choose to play.
 
You guys realize that the huge fees that Steam charged to be on their service is why this has happened. Developers need a bigger chunk of the revenue to pay for the game development now.
 
You'd think that was true if what we were seeing wasn't fragmentation that starts with the biggest studios and the most lucrative games. These aren't companies that are struggling to pay the bills.

They're fragmenting because they believe the service provided by existing providers like steam, etc, is overpriced and they can do it cheaper and keep more money on top. It's a far cry from a need and more of a profit maximization.

The same as tv/movie streaming.
 
People constantly excused this shit (multiple launchers) and now it's happening - all of these fucking companies are going to try to get their own ecosystem going.

Gideon said:
You guys realize that the huge fees that Steam charged to be on their service is why this has happened. Developers need a bigger chunk of the revenue to pay for the game development now.
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Bullshit. I'm gonna quote Jim Sterling here and say, "If you can't afford to make games without all the bullshit (micro-transactions, forced exclusives, etc.) then you shouldn't be making games". Games cost more than ever now with all of the different "editions" that are upwards of $100, and yet these greedy assholes keep trying to justify using additional monetization techniques by saying it's "too expensive" to make games, all while posting record profits. Fuck off.
 
MavericK said:
People constantly excused this shit (multiple launchers) and now it's happening - all of these fucking companies are going to try to get their own ecosystem going.



Bullshit. I'm gonna quote Jim Sterling here and say, "If you can't afford to make games without all the bullshit (micro-transactions, forced exclusives, etc.) then you shouldn't be making games". Games cost more than ever now with all of the different "editions" that are upwards of $100, and yet these greedy assholes keep trying to justify using additional monetization techniques by saying it's "too expensive" to make games, all while posting record profits. Fuck off.
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Put a hundred million on the line in a new franchise and see if you dont sweat every possible dollar you can recoup. Ever wonder why you see sequel after sequel, because they cant afford a flop on a triple A game. Look what happened to Maxis on just 1 flop despite the countless success in other games. Even Bioware is hurting and Blizzard hardly tries anymore but then again maybe your a fan of Ticketmaster.
 
MavericK said:
People constantly excused this shit (multiple launchers) and now it's happening - all of these fucking companies are going to try to get their own ecosystem going.



Bullshit. I'm gonna quote Jim Sterling here and say, "If you can't afford to make games without all the bullshit (micro-transactions, forced exclusives, etc.) then you shouldn't be making games". Games cost more than ever now with all of the different "editions" that are upwards of $100, and yet these greedy assholes keep trying to justify using additional monetization techniques by saying it's "too expensive" to make games, all while posting record profits. Fuck off.
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Nowadays it is also common to sell millions of copies of a game on hype alone. 20 years ago good luck breaking 500k. Want to save money on development stop spending more in marketing then you do in actually developing the game. No reason a CoD game should be costing 200 million to make. Does doing all those Cheeto and Mountain dew tie in really worth it?
 
arr4ws said:
were close to be back to 1 launcher per games , which isn't a bad thing.
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We called 'em shortcuts back in the day. They still ship with Windows 10 if you can believe that....a shortcut for every program ever made it seems, how'd they do it?!?

^_^
 
Gideon said:
Put a hundred million on the line in a new franchise and see if you dont sweat every possible dollar you can recoup. Ever wonder why you see sequel after sequel, because they cant afford a flop on a triple A game. Look what happened to Maxis on just 1 flop despite the countless success in other games. Even Bioware is hurting and Blizzard hardly tries anymore but then again maybe your a fan of Ticketmaster.
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And yet you have games like Minecraft and Fortnite making billions...how much money did those cost to make? What about stuff like Stardew Valley and Terraria? Money doesn't make a game good.

vegeta535 has a great point - these companies spend millions on essentially hype and marketing, and are then surprised when the games flop. Maybe instead they should go back to the drawing board and figure out why their games are flopping. I'll give you a hint, a lot of it has to do with the aforementioned "bullshit" that I referenced in my post.
 
I'll stick to steam because that's what all of my games are on. I have no interest in another games library program so probably won't buy anything that requires one.

The only exception I made to that in the last five years was Fallout 76 and look what that got me.
 
MavericK said:
And yet you have games like Minecraft and Fortnite making billions...how much money did those cost to make? What about stuff like Stardew Valley and Terraria? Money doesn't make a game good.

vegeta535 has a great point - these companies spend millions on essentially hype and marketing, and are then surprised when the games flop. Maybe instead they should go back to the drawing board and figure out why their games are flopping. I'll give you a hint, a lot of it has to do with the aforementioned "bullshit" that I referenced in my post.
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Not every game is Fortnite, and not every game that makes a lot of money is of high quality. The issue here is saving some money means you have a higher chance of unique and high quality games coming out. The break even point and profit margins can increase which makes such an endeavor possible.

Huge companies like Ubisoft won't change of course. They'll just pocket the money. But for the mid size companies trying to put out a proper narrative driven SP game that isn't infused with Ubisoft style microtransactions or going to a niche genre that still requires a big budget, the difference can make or break a studio. Now most will still opt for something that will net higher profit margins, but if it means one good game gets made that otherwise wouldn't have then it would be worth it. I'm strictly talking about fee structuring here.
 
I already have a social club acct. because of GTA V so I bit on the GTA:SA offer. The launcher is pretty basic with few options.

It's almost time for someone to make a launcher to launch all these launchers...
 
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