Fallout 76 Won’t Launch on Steam

I guess what a lot of people are just not understanding, getting is that a lot of us gamers do not want more and more and more launchers on top of launcher after launcher. I've been looking for this MEME I saw a while back that was pretty funny, but there is one out there that shows a desktop with uplay, steam, origin, blizzard, and many other launchers and the memory footprint is MASSIVE.

The additional front-end fragmenting is just going to be a major hassle.

I'm pretty sure they are going to sell a lot less copies of Fallout 76.

In my opinion, it's gonna be the catalog that makes or breaks whether or not people adopt the launchers.

The launchers with large AAA Multiplayer titles will likely succeed, as Ubisoft, EA, Activision-Blizzard have shown. Games like MMOs, and MOBAs long have had their own launchers, WoW and LoL show. Bethesda is a AAA publisher, BUT primarily deals in single-player games, so their launcher has not had much success up to now. With the fact that they are doing this for Fallout 76, I think they hope to finally attract the install base needed to leave Steam.
 
double authentication safety that protects your library of games.

I didn't have that worry when I was able to buy games just on DVD. We humans are notorious for thirsting after convenience at all costs and proofs of this are the convenience stores that pepper our landscape that charge 3x the normal price for items and call themselves, interestingly enough ... Convenience Stores :cool:
 
I get all the different angles here. Steam was first, and is the largest, so they are the 800lb gorilla of digital game distribution... and they charge 30%+ of sales. 30% is HUGE. Plus all the other benefits they provide... community, patching, DRM, etc.

But I think companies that want to break from Steam to "save money" haven't done all the math on how much cloud solutions really cost, development time and cost for the launcher, bandwidth etc. It probably isn't 30%, but still. Steam is a plug in solution, no work involved.

As a gamer, I hate having 5 different launchers. I kind of wish some of them would team up instead of every publisher trying to re-invent the wheel. EA and Activision/Blizzard are never going to group up, but 3rd parties like Ubi or Bethesda could pick a side. But then that costs money... hell I don't know.

One wonders how much it used to cost to manufacture all the discs, boxes, artwork, etc etc that was involved with retail. Then how much off the top does/did Best Buy etc charge? I bet those numbers exceed.... wait for it.... 30%? Maybe even 50%. Old Man Best Buy gots to get paid.
 
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It seems that pc gaming is starting to suffer the same thing that streaming does. Content creators starting their own platforms. I can't be dealing with that. so I now ignore most small content creators who do this. They dig their own graves by going rogue. There is a point where people just say enough is enough. How many freaking launchers should I have on my pc?
I already have four: Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG Galaxy.

Yup. I like having some alternatives for the sake of competition, but I don't want 10 or so.
 
battlenet / steam / origin / uplay / windows store / to be continued ....
 
I guess I won't be buying it then. I have no particular love for Steam, but it is where all my games are. I'm not signing up to another service when a perfectly adequate one already exists. Bethesda can take their digital turf war and shove it.
 
Yeah, I am going to pass as well. If another avenue for download presents itself, I will take a look at that. I am just not interested in Origin, the Microsoft store, Bethesda or, other launchers. I find Steam is about all I want to deal with.


Yep put me in the category of "no more launchers for me!"

One is enough.
 
After how bad I felt Fallout 4 was compared to New Vegas... I do not care for 76. I'll also be busy with Red Dead Redemption 2 (mind you: not on pc... but it is better played on PS4 PRO than not played at all :) ).
 
I see a lot of people play down one side or the other. Why not the option of both? Or more? Let the customer pick which is best for them? (Standalone, Bethesda, Steam, etc etc etc)
 
There are pros and cons for compartmentalizing games. But the Beth launcher is Pooh stuck on a stick. After years it still doesn't work on my old machine. Just has a black screen.

I'm all for finding good alternatives to stream. But stream was good for keeping publishers in check from going 100% draconian.
 
I see a lot of people play down one side or the other. Why not the option of both? Or more? Let the customer pick which is best for them? (Standalone, Bethesda, Steam, etc etc etc)
You would think that more universal options would be better, but people are obviously too lazy to bother with the required stages to get there. They latch on to the nearest biggest tit and grip tightly.
 
I appreciate this post. I was literally looking for this game on steam week after week. Now I know that I will just not be buying it. No problem. On a side note, I think its weird that Ubisoft sells games on steam that then launch their launcher.
 
You would think that more universal options would be better, but people are obviously too lazy to bother with the required stages to get there. They latch on to the nearest biggest tit and grip tightly.
I don't see how this fits here. Bethesda didn't say "we're going to create our own launcher than you can use if you want." They said "you have to use our launcher, you can't get the game anywhere else." How is that adding more options? If I want to play Fallout 76, I have exactly one option.
 
Provided these newcomers into the space are serious about carrying lots of product the competition will be good in the long run.

Sadly, most of what I have seen is just huge companies cutting out the middle man while not passing on any sort of savings.
 
Back on topic
I don't really see an issue with this not being in steam.
 
I don't see how this fits here. Bethesda didn't say "we're going to create our own launcher than you can use if you want." They said "you have to use our launcher, you can't get the game anywhere else." How is that adding more options? If I want to play Fallout 76, I have exactly one option.
It's the first step. If more developers would abandon Steam, the market would begin to change. Currently they are the practical monopoly that is holding the marked hostage.
 
Would the market really change though? The market will never go back to CD/DVD/BRD discs. That is a pipe dream. Also, a lot of people will not accept the inconvenience of multiple launchers/clients/friends lists/etc.. Natural monopolies do happen. To me, a game not showing up on steam is a lost sale opportunity for the developer/publisher. It does not cause me to look elsewhere for the product, it causes me to write the product off. It's not out of malice, or spite, it is simply a matter of convenience, and not wanting 20 different launchers/clients/friends lists/etc. If it is not on steam, I am not going to bother with it. I don't have to. There are so many games out there right now, so many being created that if even only 1/2 or a 1/4 end up on steam, I will still have a ton of games to play. So this game gets a shrug and in a few days I will have mostly forgotten about it as other games gets pushed into my discovery que.
There are no must play games anymore for many of us.
 
Would the market really change though? The market will never go back to CD/DVD/BRD discs. That is a pipe dream. Also, a lot of people will not accept the inconvenience of multiple launchers/clients/friends lists/etc.. Natural monopolies do happen. To me, a game not showing up on steam is a lost sale opportunity for the developer/publisher. It does not cause me to look elsewhere for the product, it causes me to write the product off. It's not out of malice, or spite, it is simply a matter of convenience, and not wanting 20 different launchers/clients/friends lists/etc. If it is not on steam, I am not going to bother with it. I don't have to. There are so many games out there right now, so many being created that if even only 1/2 or a 1/4 end up on steam, I will still have a ton of games to play. So this game gets a shrug and in a few days I will have mostly forgotten about it as other games gets pushed into my discovery que.
There are no must play games anymore for many of us.

Or, companies could keep doing what they had been doing, and releasing games on Steam, Origin, DVD/BRD, their own client, etc. and let people use whatever they want.
 
Would the market really change though? The market will never go back to CD/DVD/BRD discs. That is a pipe dream. Also, a lot of people will not accept the inconvenience of multiple launchers/clients/friends lists/etc.. Natural monopolies do happen. To me, a game not showing up on steam is a lost sale opportunity for the developer/publisher. It does not cause me to look elsewhere for the product, it causes me to write the product off. It's not out of malice, or spite, it is simply a matter of convenience, and not wanting 20 different launchers/clients/friends lists/etc. If it is not on steam, I am not going to bother with it. I don't have to. There are so many games out there right now, so many being created that if even only 1/2 or a 1/4 end up on steam, I will still have a ton of games to play. So this game gets a shrug and in a few days I will have mostly forgotten about it as other games gets pushed into my discovery que.
There are no must play games anymore for many of us.
That's fine. I feel the same about GOG. If it's not available there, it must be some special gem of a game that I absolutely must have and there aren't many of those, if at all. My backlog would last me a few lifetimes anyway. I have no desire to support consumer unfriendly DRMs like Steam and be held hostage to their whims when it comes to my games.
 
What if publishers agreed upon an common API convention. Anyone could run whatever client they want, and each publisher would have the option to run their own service if they didn't want to go through steam. Steam would also just be another API.

I'm dreaming
 
What if publishers agreed upon an common API convention. Anyone could run whatever client they want, and each publisher would have the option to run their own service if they didn't want to go through steam. Steam would also just be another API.

I'm dreaming
Having a common friends list, messaging system, and launcher, where each services client and store was just a plug in would be great. You are correct in that being a dream though. They all want to be steam or google or facebook. They all want to be the one the rest are forced to do business with. I doubt a single one of them would be willing to cooperate in that except maybe gog.
 
Having a common friends list, messaging system, and launcher, where each services client and store was just a plug in would be great. You are correct in that being a dream though. They all want to be steam or google or facebook. They all want to be the one the rest are forced to do business with. I doubt a single one of them would be willing to cooperate in that except maybe gog.
Yeah, now if Gaben suddenly had a change of heart, or if steam dramatically loses market share..... It's a longshot but maybe as a last ditched effort he'd try to create some open standard before his influence (or body) dies. Something, but yeah all the shareholders need to have their company take over the world :(
 
They latch on to the nearest biggest tit and grip tightly.


im not seeing an issue with that..


but as far as the thread..

I just dont want to support more then steam for game sales. GOG is the only other option, for me
 
Easy:

Offer the game on Steam, and on your own platform... cheaper.

Or is there anything on Steam EULA or whatever that won't let you do that?
 
It seems that pc gaming is starting to suffer the same thing that streaming does. Content creators starting their own platforms. I can't be dealing with that. so I now ignore most small content creators who do this. They dig their own graves by going rogue. There is a point where people just say enough is enough. How many freaking launchers should I have on my pc?
I already have four: Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG Galaxy.

There is already a solution to this, its the windows store.
 
Oh boy another icon in the task tray eating up memory and cpu cycles! I understand not wanting to be a slave to Steam, but really, another launcher? What happened to installing a game and having an icon on the desktop that launched the game when I wanted to?


The game client isn't really a bad thing.
Lets consider what happened before the advent of steam.
Every game had to create all its down redundant systems. Its own chat, its own anti cheat, its own updater and yes all of that ran in the background or at launch. What steam did was create a store where you could get many games.
Back in those days it wasn't uncommon for people to fail to update games it was a mess now days you don't hear of people who just fail to update games so they aren't playing on the same patch and that's better.
Even if many companies make game clients its still less work for you than when EVERY game had a separate client.

The alternative is to end up in a monopoly system with a forced store like the app store for apple.
 
There is already a solution to this, its the windows store.
The windows 10 store is trying to be a store for all the wrong reasons:

- Limited to Windows 10 only, alienating hundreds of millions of combined Win 7 & 8.1 users
- App selection is awful. Like, awful. Still mostly a collection of third worlder knockoff apps.
- Geared toward mobile - both in UI and devices that they're no longer selling and a platform they abandoned
- Mandatory, multiple layers of DRM on everything - even freeware. Files are obfuscated and encrypted inside a lockbox MS keeps the keys to. So you don't have physical access to your software, you cant back anything up or modify files, or use mods - again, even on freeware. For comparison, Steam does not mandate DRM and leaves it up to the publisher, and you retain access and physical control over your files and software.
- Will continually reinstall and endlessly update the default MS apps and games, even after you uninstalled them with powershell
- Still cant properly manage delta updating. Still. 3 years in. Multi hundred GB titles like Gears of War have blasted through people's data caps because the entire game was re-downloaded multiple times.
- Is not a proper Windows software repository like it should have started out decades ago

The list goes on. The windows 10 store is cancerous, and thankfully most users seem to realize it since it's universally ignored, and MS doesn't even bother reporting stats from it anymore during their quarterlies. With UWP dead in the water, it's GFWL 2.0 at this point.
 
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The game client isn't really a bad thing.
Lets consider what happened before the advent of steam.
Every game had to create all its down redundant systems. Its own chat, its own anti cheat, its own updater and yes all of that ran in the background or at launch. What steam did was create a store where you could get many games.
Back in those days it wasn't uncommon for people to fail to update games it was a mess now days you don't hear of people who just fail to update games so they aren't playing on the same patch and that's better.
Even if many companies make game clients its still less work for you than when EVERY game had a separate client.

The alternative is to end up in a monopoly system with a forced store like the app store for apple.

I see the benefits of Steam. Not going to argue that at all. You have all these different launchers. Steam, Origin, Uplay, Sony has one for their MMO's, same with Cryptic. The list goes on and on. Just add a check for updates script when launching a game and download it as needed, if you have a slow connection, download in the background while you're playing and install on next launch.
 
You're over simplifying what Steam actually does. It's a front-end, double authentication safety that protects your library of games. Fast download speeds, support. Also, a rather robust gaming community. I am sure I am leaving out a lot of other perks.

There is a tremendous value in having all your games under one roof. In fact, I would argue that the loss of sales vs the fees they would have had to pay would wash each other out. Possibly even cost Bethesda in the end.

Steam is nothing but glorified file hosting.
 
Why? I just clearly stated ...why... very clearly ...why... How this escaped your attention is beyond me.

"The goal of course being to discourage publishers from doing this in the first place. I would make it very clear that if you do this and your sells suffer, do not live up to expectations, fall flat, that you do not get to come running back to Steam."

Many business's have these types of penalties / safeguards in place and they are perfectly legal. It's a very good tool.

then publishers that are left e.g. Rockstar will just use the Rockstar Social Club, whilst square and 2K would use Uplay or Origin, then you will be stuck with indie Shovel ware, then Steam will be transformed to nothing but a games as a service file hoster filled with Unity Asset Flips.
 
It seems that pc gaming is starting to suffer the same thing that streaming does. Content creators starting their own platforms. I can't be dealing with that. so I now ignore most small content creators who do this. They dig their own graves by going rogue. There is a point where people just say enough is enough. How many freaking launchers should I have on my pc?
I already have four: Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG Galaxy.
So EA, Epic, Bethesda, Blizzard, Activision should pay 30% per sale for Glorified File Hosting?
because you are Lazy
 
I get all the different angles here. Steam was first, and is the largest, so they are the 800lb gorilla of digital game distribution... and they charge 30%+ of sales. 30% is HUGE. Plus all the other benefits they provide... community, patching, DRM, etc.

But I think companies that want to break from Steam to "save money" haven't done all the math on how much cloud solutions really cost, development time and cost for the launcher, bandwidth etc. It probably isn't 30%, but still. Steam is a plug in solution, no work involved.

As a gamer, I hate having 5 different launchers. I kind of wish some of them would team up instead of every publisher trying to re-invent the wheel. EA and Activision/Blizzard are never going to group up, but 3rd parties like Ubi or Bethesda could pick a side. But then that costs money... hell I don't know.

One wonders how much it used to cost to manufacture all the discs, boxes, artwork, etc etc that was involved with retail. Then how much off the top does/did Best Buy etc charge? I bet those numbers exceed.... wait for it.... 30%? Maybe even 50%. Old Man Best Buy gots to get paid.

Steam is nothing but a Glorified File Hosting service, for AAA games their Services are Moot, if you love Battlefield games, Call of duty Games etc you will already be part of their communities on Social Media, Discord, Reddit, even their own Game forums anyway, As for Marketing please don't make me laugh AAA companies spend double their budget on Marketing anyway(so that point is also moot), Origin hosts their own games and third party ones on their store they dont even struggle, even the Polish at GOG have done it, Companies still need to pay taxes, software licenses etc.

After all Gamers have been crying for new IP's with the money they save they might create new games.

I see a lot of people play down one side or the other. Why not the option of both? Or more? Let the customer pick which is best for them? (Standalone, Bethesda, Steam, etc etc etc)

Steam sales, they want games but they don't want to pay full price, which is Ironic since the same community refers to Console Gamers are Peasants.

You would think that more universal options would be better, but people are obviously too lazy to bother with the required stages to get there. They latch on to the nearest biggest tit and grip tightly.

the reason people carry water for steam is because they are Cheapskate's who want to buy AAA games for 10 bucks.
 
I get all the different angles here. Steam was first, and is the largest, so they are the 800lb gorilla of digital game distribution... and they charge 30%+ of sales. 30% is HUGE. Plus all the other benefits they provide... community, patching, DRM, etc.

But I think companies that want to break from Steam to "save money" haven't done all the math on how much cloud solutions really cost, development time and cost for the launcher, bandwidth etc. It probably isn't 30%, but still. Steam is a plug in solution, no work involved.

As a gamer, I hate having 5 different launchers. I kind of wish some of them would team up instead of every publisher trying to re-invent the wheel. EA and Activision/Blizzard are never going to group up, but 3rd parties like Ubi or Bethesda could pick a side. But then that costs money... hell I don't know.

One wonders how much it used to cost to manufacture all the discs, boxes, artwork, etc etc that was involved with retail. Then how much off the top does/did Best Buy etc charge? I bet those numbers exceed.... wait for it.... 30%? Maybe even 50%. Old Man Best Buy gots to get paid.

Steam is nothing but a Glorified File Hosting service, for AAA games their Services are Moot, if you love Battlefield games, Call of duty Games etc you will already be part of their communities on Social Media, Discord, Reddit, even their own Game forums anyway, As for Marketing please don't make me laugh AAA companies spend double their budget on Marketing anyway(so that point is also moot), Origin hosts their own games and third party ones on their store they dont even struggle, even the Polish at GOG have done it, Companies still need to pay taxes, software licenses etc.

After all Gamers have been crying for new IP's with the money they save they might create new games.

I see a lot of people play down one side or the other. Why not the option of both? Or more? Let the customer pick which is best for them? (Standalone, Bethesda, Steam, etc etc etc)

Steam sales, they want games but they don't want to pay full price, which is Ironic since the same community refers to Console Gamers are Peasants.

You would think that more universal options would be better, but people are obviously too lazy to bother with the required stages to get there. They latch on to the nearest biggest tit and grip tightly.

the reason people carry water for steam is because they are Cheapskate's who want to buy AAA games for 10 bucks.
 
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