Too many steam-like clients

M

MorgothPl

2[H]4U
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Oct 13, 2008
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After few winter sales, I'm kinda pissed on all those downloading clients. I now have to get 4 installed.

1) Steam
2) Origin
3) Uplay
4) Muve downloader (client for a local Polish shop, because some of the games I buy are not connected to those three others, but are tied to the shop's client).

It's getting out of hand IMO. From security reasons I don't like to be always connected to the services and have them remember passwords. So Whenever I click on the game, it's like launch the client first, remember login and password, then choose the game then play and pray that the service will be online.

/rant :)
 
Steam I understand. Origin... Necessary evil for battlefield games. Everything else I refuse to install. Uplay is a joke
 
jmilcher said:
Steam I understand. Origin... Necessary evil for battlefield games. Everything else I refuse to install. Uplay is a joke
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Uplay works just fine, these days.


MorgothPl said:
It's getting out of hand IMO. From security reasons I don't like to be always connected to the services and have them remember passwords. So Whenever I click on the game, it's like launch the client first, remember login and password, then choose the game then play and pray that the service will be online.
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Nobody is making you spread out your games over all of those services. If you don't want to use a particular Service, don't purchase games that are tied to them. For exclusives like Battlefield, you have to decide how badly you want to own it. If you decide to buy it KNOWING that it's tied to a specific service, you don't get to complain about it.
 
jmilcher said:
Steam I understand. Origin... Necessary evil for battlefield games. Everything else I refuse to install. Uplay is a joke
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Literally the same thing, I ONLY have battlefield products in origin everything else is steam and if it doesn't come to steam i dont need it.
 
TheGamerZ said:
Nobody is making you spread out your games over all of those services. If you don't want to use a particular Service, don't purchase games that are tied to them. For exclusives like Battlefield, you have to decide how badly you want to own it. If you decide to buy it KNOWING that it's tied to a specific service, you don't get to complain about it.
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Sigh...
 
I don't like having so many game clients just in principle because it can lead down a bad road where every major developer/publisher requires their own client to run their games...but that being said I have Steam (85% of games), Origin (Crysis trilogy,Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 3) and Uplay (Assassins Creed series) installed and don't have issues running any of them
 
Just bought Far Cry 3 during the Steam Holiday sale. Have to fire up Uplay, which fires up Steam in order to play. That is ridiculous.
 
pcjunkie said:
Just bought Far Cry 3 during the Steam Holiday sale. Have to fire up Uplay, which fires up Steam in order to play. That is ridiculous.
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I did the same thing. When I launched through steam and it launched Uplay, I thought to myself, "Is this serious?" I would not have bought it had I known. It said "activates on steam" on the product page.

I've already made the decision that I will never purchase another game that uses anything other than Steam. I don't care if I miss out on good games. I'm tired of all this shit I have to have installed just to play the game. PC gaming is ruining the good things it has going with this dumb shit.
 
big_aug said:
I did the same thing. When I launched through steam and it launched Uplay, I thought to myself, "Is this serious?" I would not have bought it had I known. It said "activates on steam" on the product page.

I've already made the decision that I will never purchase another game that uses anything other than Steam. I don't care if I miss out on good games. I'm tired of all this shit I have to have installed just to play the game. PC gaming is ruining the good things it has going with this dumb shit.
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The multiple layers of client based DRM is annoying, but you really won't want Valve to have complete control. Valve NEEDS good competition on the client side. Origin and UPlay really aren't at that point, but their existence isn't a bad thing. We are going to an all digital future with the game's industry and there needs to be as much competition in the digital market as there is in the retail one. With less retailer exclusive bullshit though.
 
Derangel said:
The multiple layers of client based DRM is annoying, but you really won't want Valve to have complete control. Valve NEEDS good competition on the client side. Origin and UPlay really aren't at that point, but their existence isn't a bad thing. We are going to an all digital future with the game's industry and there needs to be as much competition in the digital market as there is in the retail one. With less retailer exclusive bullshit though.
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I don't care if they have complete control or not. I'm just personally not going to bother with other clients. I absolutely hate having these multiple clients. I don't have any others installed now except Uplay because I just bought Far Cry 3. Once I've had my fill of that, I'll uninstall it and never install another one again.

I'll let other people feed the competition. I surely won't be doing it. I like having everything in one place.
 
big_aug said:
I've already made the decision that I will never purchase another game that uses anything other than Steam. I don't care if I miss out on good games. I'm tired of all this shit I have to have installed just to play the game. PC gaming is ruining the good things it has going with this dumb shit.
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Yup, I agree 100%! I won't install Origin, ever. Just imagine, in a few years there will be 20 different game companies with 20 different clients to play 20 different games. Screw that.
 
Vildayyan2003 said:
Yup, I agree 100%! I won't install Origin, ever. Just imagine, in a few years there will be 20 different game companies with 20 different clients to play 20 different games. Screw that.
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Everyone always mentions this sky is falling scenario, but it won't happen. The simple truth is the market simple won't support that. It barely supports the three clients we have now and that is only because Ubi and EA put out games people really want to play. I can't see a, for example, Activision one working. Amazon has the power to do something, but they simply do not seem all that interested in competing on the client front. No one else in the game industry has the kind of power needed to really support a client service like Steam.

People have been saying "we will have to install a client for every different game" since Origin showed up, never mind that EA Downloader has been around nearly as long as Steam.
 
big_aug said:
I don't care if they have complete control or not. I'm just personally not going to bother with other clients. I absolutely hate having these multiple clients. I don't have any others installed now except Uplay because I just bought Far Cry 3. Once I've had my fill of that, I'll uninstall it and never install another one again.

I'll let other people feed the competition. I surely won't be doing it. I like having everything in one place.
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why is it such a big deal to install an additional game client or 2?...you probably have tons of worse software installed on your system...to miss out on a great game because it uses Uplay or Origin is silly...there are actually aspects to Origin/Uplay that I prefer over Steam
 
Being a proponent of KISS there's way too many BS layers on PC just to play games. On top of Origin and Steam there's Punkbuster, all the BS browser plugins ESN Sonar API, Battlelog Game Launcher, etc. and worse layer of them all is crappy Nvidia drivers which cause a different issue with every version from spontaneous BSoD, affecting other apps, in-game graphical glitches, etc. Trying 327.23 that seems to be mostly free of those issues so far but causes frequent BF3 and BF4 crashes. Lovely, huh? Glad for PS4 but waiting for games to take advantage of keyboard and mouse.
 
Yeah let's let Steam rule the entire market, especially with their fantastic policy of NO REFUNDS. Funny how no one ever seems to care about that, they instead bitch about CS with other clients (Origin the most it seems) yet always gloss over Steam's huge flaws in that department.
 
I only have Steam and Origin for all of my game purchases. Uplay is installed, but I don't have any purchases tied to it - it's just the UBI front end (aka. DRM). Luckily it seems to work fine and I've never had any problems related to it.
You have to imagine more are coming. It wouldn't shock me to see Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, etc. all coming up with their own digital distro services.
 
I have Steam, Origin and Uplay for normal use. For some of the older games I also have GMG, Amazon, Gamefly and Gamestop. However, the last 3 I haven't used in quite a while. GMG is a regular occurrence due to older games not being on either of the BIG THREE.

Frankly, I don't give a shit about downloaders. All work the same way and only 2 really require me to login frequently (Steam and Origin).
 
xIronCrossx said:
Yeah let's let Steam rule the entire market, especially with their fantastic policy of NO REFUNDS. Funny how no one ever seems to care about that, they instead bitch about CS with other clients (Origin the most it seems) yet always gloss over Steam's huge flaws in that department.
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I'm just a bit curious about this, so are you talking about a refund for a downloaded game that does not work? I've never had an issue with steam games just flat-out not working.
 
From my own experiences, here's my list of how I think the client quality is.

  1. Steam
  2. Origin & Uplay (tie)
  3. Battle.net
  4. Desura
  5. GameStop App
  6. Beamdog
  7. GOG Downloader
  8. Amazon
  9. GameFly Download Manager
  10. Capsule
  11. YuPlay
 
Its never been an issue for me. I have all the major ones installed and swap between games easily.

Password management is trivial. I use KeePass for all my passwords - even out side of gaming - so its second nature for me to pull it up for accounts. The amount of passwords I keep for game accounts is small to all the passwords I use frequently (banking, investments, bills, work, email, social). Keepass keeps them all secure.

Steam has the largest library of games, but I've never forgotten which client i need to launch when I want to play a particular game. I also dont have any of them auto run.
 
The most two I ever use is Desura and Steam. I haven't touched Battlefield 3 in a long while.

However, anything in Origin I have it linked in Steam anyway as a non-Steam game even those from Desura. The most played EA/Maxis game I have right now is The Sims 3 since the keys I have are from Origin.
 
jmilcher said:
Steam I understand. Origin... Necessary evil for battlefield games. Everything else I refuse to install. Uplay is a joke
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Steam you understand? Steam is the reason for all these dam clients.
 
I don't know what the proper solution is. You need competition in the market, but you don't want a bunch of shit running on your PC. It's the same thing with social media clients; getting really annoying to the point where you don't even want to visit their websites to get away from it all.

Maybe install them but disable them from starting with Windows? What we really need is a master list of games that starts them up on your PC and terminates the proprietary store client after you finish playing the game. I think that would be the best solution.
 
Dion said:
Steam you understand? Steam is the reason for all these dam clients.
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I never understood your undying loathing of steam. You defended uplay, origin, and other forms of DRM without question but yet you can't seem to let any post with steam mentioned about how horrible it is.

cageymaru said:
I don't know what the proper solution is. You need competition in the market, but you don't want a bunch of shit running on your PC. It's the same thing with social media clients; getting really annoying to the point where you don't even want to visit their websites to get away from it all.

Maybe install them but disable them from starting with Windows? What we really need is a master list of games that starts them up on your PC and terminates the proprietary store client after you finish playing the game. I think that would be the best solution.
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Best thing is too allow a digital purchase to be linked on any digital service of your choosing. If you purchase FarCry 3 you have an option to use Uplay, Steam, or Origin, or just the client itself without any of the above mentioned services.

Allow Steam, Uplay, Origin, or whatever other client of your choice to compete for your collection by what services they offer.
 
Climber said:
Best thing is too allow a digital purchase to be linked on any digital service of your choosing. If you purchase FarCry 3 you have an option to use Uplay, Steam, or Origin, or just the client itself without any of the above mentioned services.

Allow Steam, Uplay, Origin, or whatever other client of your choice to compete for your collection by what services they offer.
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That will never happen. It would require all three of them to be publisher agnostic. You will never see Valve games on Origin or Uplay, just like EA games won't be on Steam anymore. Ubi is the only one of the three that doesn't really care as long as they get money.
 
Derangel said:
That will never happen. It would require all three of them to be publisher agnostic. You will never see Valve games on Origin or Uplay, just like EA games won't be on Steam anymore. Ubi is the only one of the three that doesn't really care as long as they get money.
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Even then, you need Yuplay which runs under Steam and I assume Origin to. Which means you have to load up two clients. In which case, I think I would rather just get it for Yuplay only. One less client running in the background.
 
Flogger23m said:
Even then, you need Yuplay which runs under Steam and I assume Origin to. Which means you have to load up two clients. In which case, I think I would rather just get it for Yuplay only. One less client running in the background.
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UPlay, not Yuplay. Yuplay is something completely different not made buy Ubisoft. I have Brotherhood and Revelations on Steam and 2, 3, and 4 on Uplay. The launcher doesn't bother me that much, but I do wish I could just put my Steam keys for the other games into Uplay and skip that step.
 
Climber said:
Allow Steam, Uplay, Origin, or whatever other client of your choice to compete for your collection by what services they offer.
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This would never happen without some sort of government intervention.

All of this is ignoring what is really coming down the line. That is OS stores, the windows store, app store and play store. None of these 3 have any interest in allowing companies to make their own stores especially not in the lucrative game market. This is why Gabe blew a nut when he saw windows 8 because every dollar he makes is now threatened.

All this shit reminds me of the association wars and download manager wars of the days of old.

Although that said I think MS with the windows store and its being behind would be start to do something like amazon where instead of it being just a store it is more like a mall. Say you have steam be a store in the mall. You can search everything, or enter the steam portal in the store. If you buy in the windows store you give MS 30% if you buy in the steam store MS takes 5% and steam takes 25% etc....

IMO right now nothing will happen but if any of them do get a monopoly (google looks likely to pull it off) I think the US government will step in.

As for the OP, I 100% agree too many crappy clients. I did use origin before I quit BF3.
 
TheGamerZ said:
Uplay works just fine, these days.




Nobody is making you spread out your games over all of those services. If you don't want to use a particular Service, don't purchase games that are tied to them. For exclusives like Battlefield, you have to decide how badly you want to rent a license to use that title subject to the publishers Terms of Use/General License Restrictions. If you decide to rent a license to use that title subject to the publishers Terms of Use/General License Restrictions it KNOWING that it's tied to a specific service, you don't get to complain about it.
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Fixed that for ya.
 
Too many Walmart-like stores out there! I only like to buy my wares from Walmart, I now have to shop at 4 actual stores to get good deals. Nobody else should be able to create a marketplace, the entire shopping experience should be at Walmart because thats what I like, and stuff.
 
What we need is the ability to share games in between clients. Such as buying on steam and having it work on uplay or whatever. Or a sort of complied client like Digsby or Trillian for instant messaging.

That would be a wonder.
 
theNoid said:
Too many Walmart-like stores out there! I only like to buy my wares from Walmart, I now have to shop at 4 actual stores to get good deals. Nobody else should be able to create a marketplace, the entire shopping experience should be at Walmart because thats what I like, and stuff.
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*facepalm* :rolleyes:
 
Serpent said:
What we need is the ability to share games in between clients. Such as buying on steam and having it work on uplay or whatever. Or a sort of complied client like Digsby or Trillian for instant messaging.

That would be a wonder.
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That would void one of the reasons they exist null. If you were to buy a game on Steam and then download it on Origin, EA must pay for bandwidth/cloud storage yet they did not make a cent from you.

Or you can sell a title in which both client hosts get a cut of the money, but then that will likely result in less income for the game developer.
 
I just want everything clearly labeled with exactly what is required. Far Cry 3 pissed me off because it said "activates on steam" but it actually required Steam AND Uplay. Yes, I could have done more research to figure that out. But "activates on steam" was enough for me on a $7.50 purchase. I would not have purchased it if I knew Uplay was required.

That's all I want so that I can make easy, informed choices not to purchase products that have additional software requirements. Pretty simple. If I miss out on games because of it, so be it. I'll speak with my wallet however small that voice may be.
 
I understand the both sides of this argument people are making here. The bigger picture is the cloud. In certain instances, it's still more convenient then brick and mortar, or running your own, but this definitely adds a complication wrinkle to what was being sold with the cloud from the get go. The cloud is more of a storm system now. And that's not just game clients....Google docs vs Office360...Hulu vs Netflix vs HBO Go vs Showtime anywhere, etc. Now you have to risk compromising your password, spread out on all these systems, or coming up with new ones for each (like me) and trying to remember them all. Keep pass is great I'm sure, but does it remember your mobile devices and built in systems? Oh well...back to the drawing board :D
 
I don't care anymore, for most of the games I'm paying $10 or less. I do like it on steam but if i can get it cheaper on origin or uplay then I do.

My only complaint is I could never remember the account info, but now that I use lastpass I don't bother remembering shit anymore.

It used to bug me, but now i've gotten used to it.
 
big_aug said:
I just want everything clearly labeled with exactly what is required. Far Cry 3 pissed me off because it said "activates on steam" but it actually required Steam AND Uplay. Yes, I could have done more research to figure that out. But "activates on steam" was enough for me on a $7.50 purchase. I would not have purchased it if I knew Uplay was required.

That's all I want so that I can make easy, informed choices not to purchase products that have additional software requirements. Pretty simple. If I miss out on games because of it, so be it. I'll speak with my wallet however small that voice may be.
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The labeling issue is more of a fault of the place you bought it from. On Steam FC3 actually states that UPlay is required.
 
big_aug said:
I don't care if they have complete control or not. I'm just personally not going to bother with other clients. I absolutely hate having these multiple clients. I don't have any others installed now except Uplay because I just bought Far Cry 3. Once I've had my fill of that, I'll uninstall it and never install another one again.

I'll let other people feed the competition. I surely won't be doing it. I like having everything in one place.
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Unless you are away from your comp a lot why not just keep them running? That's what I do with my Steam/Origin.
 
I completely agree. Having multiple clients is a huge PITA and can be really inconvenient for the customer.

I honestly don't mind Steam. It has a lot more positives than negatives IMO and since it was the first kid on the block, that's what I'm comfortable with (and 99% of my game library is tied to). Especially now with services like Greenlight, Steam workshop, in home streaming and big picture modes. I plan on making a steam box for playing games with a controller in the living room and having to use a 3rd party launcher will make it a significantly more clunky experience... especially with the POS browser based Battlelog.

I only have Steam and Origin installed... and the only reason why I have Origin installed at all is from free game keys I received. Origin was an ok idea, but outside of 1st party EA titles, I doubt many people use it. Same with Ubi. Wish they'd just throw in the towel already and sell their games on both platforms.
 
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