PC launcher hell: is library merging the way forward?

BeI · Jan 12, 2019

Steam, Origin, Uplay, Bethesda, Battle.net, Epic, GOG, and there's probably more launchers I'm missing, and at this rate there's likely more to come. There's lots of different places besides Steam to have games these days, but personally (and I'm not alone) I forget I even have games because they aren't on my most used store / launcher. It's a massive pain having split libraries.

There are some options out there like Playnite that can sync games from different launchers into one interface to make things easier. It seems like a good idea, from pc gamer perspective, to try to help manage all these old and new launchers by syncing games from all of them into one interface for ease of use. There's still plenty of room for more improvement, like better controller support + "big picture mode" type stuff, better automatic sorting of your games, along with maybe being able to search for and buy games from any (or most) launcher without having to leave the interface.

Since other launchers are here to stay, for the sake of ease of use as a pc gamer, are programs that merge all your games into one place something worth pursuing?

JeffGubb · Jan 12, 2019

Discord is trying to merge your libraries, and it's already the default friends list.

TheUnseenTheUnheard · Jan 12, 2019

Honestly I'm waiting for Epic to be like transfer 100 steam games to EPIC store or something.

Nevermind thats a terrible idea unless it needs to stay linked

Ploid 6.0 · Jan 12, 2019

I just pin shortcuts to my games in the start menu. I also put some non steam games that I want to use the steam controller with in the steam library list. Everything works fine for me. I put passwords in a password manager, and I update the passwords every now and then. I played Epic Games Store version of Subnautica with the steam controller with no problems.

Iichter · Jan 12, 2019

I do use playnite but then for non-steam games I lose the Steam Input feature, so it's not perfect.

MGPanda · Jan 12, 2019

TheUnseenTheUnheard said:
Honestly I'm waiting for Epic to be like transfer 100 steam games to EPIC store or something.

Nevermind thats a terrible idea unless it needs to stay linked

GOG does this sometimes. There's a certain library of games that you can get on GOG if you link your Steam account.

chrisypoo · Jan 12, 2019

I wouldn't mind the PC launchers equivalent of a Movies Anywhere account, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. It would take too much cooperation between several different companies that don't often play nicely.

BeI · Jan 12, 2019

Iichter said:
I do use playnite but then for non-steam games I lose the Steam Input feature, so it's not perfect.

chrisypoo said:
I wouldn't mind the PC launchers equivalent of a Movies Anywhere account, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. It would take too much cooperation between several different companies that don't often play nicely.

Does it really need cooperation? I don't think the guy that made Playnite needed to worry about that.

Deleted member 49535 · Jan 12, 2019

The solution to multiple clients is not installing one more client (for me anyway).

I'd like more stores doing what GOG does of importing your library from another store, probably not realistic though.

Siggy · Jan 12, 2019

I wish launchers settled on an open API standard to invoke them and their games so people could work on proper unified launchers. Probably won't happen, though, as storefronts want you to remain in their ecosystem and not some third party's.

Zaitengrate · Jan 12, 2019

The way forward is boycotting games that not on your favourite launcher. Everything else is just halfstep.

spineduke · Jan 12, 2019

Signaltonsalat said:
I wish launchers settled on an open API standard to invoke them and their games so people could work on proper unified launchers. Probably won't happen, though, as storefronts want you to remain in their ecosystem and not some third party's.

yeah thats never happening, competition and all

ManixMiner · Jan 12, 2019

Having multiple launchers sucks ass for PC gaming.

m29a · Jan 12, 2019

Can't say I've ever been bothered with all the launchers. Is it a slight inconvenience? Sure. But I think a lot of people exaggerate how bad it is. It adds a few extra clicks to launch games, and I don't really find myself forgetting what I have installed either.

SliChillax · Jan 12, 2019

I just put the shortcuts from other launchers in my Steam library with a custom grid 460x215 image.

Iichter · Jan 12, 2019

BeImonkey said:
Does it really need cooperation? I don't think the guy that made Playnite needed to worry about that.

Having permissive APIs is some sort of cooperation I think.

daninthemix · Jan 12, 2019

To be honest I'm less worried about multiple launchers and more worried that

a) non-Steam launchers won't let me use my PS4 wireless controller
b) non-Steam launchers have a higher chance of being shut down and losing my games.

The more services there are, the more likely one will disappear along with any games we bought.

Nintendo · Jan 12, 2019

Never been bothered by multiple launchers. I'll open the launcher that I need for the game I want to play. I don't need to browse my library all at once.

HP_Wuvcraft · Jan 12, 2019

JEFFREY GRUBB said:
Discord is trying to merge your libraries, and it's already the default friends list.

Discord does a really good job of this.

Zaitengrate said:
The way forward is boycotting games that not on your favourite launcher. Everything else is just halfstep.

God, I hope you're joking.

Jimrpg · Jan 12, 2019

Haven't been bothered by the multiple third party stores, key sellers, existing launchers yet.

JayBee · Jan 12, 2019

Sticking with steam only.

Roukira · Jan 12, 2019

I think Playnite is the way to go, it's still improving but I think it will get better and better.

Deleted member 16849 · Jan 12, 2019

Zaitengrate said:
The way forward is boycotting games that not on your favourite launcher. Everything else is just halfstep.

You do realise games not on someone's launcher of choice is still playable on PC?

BeI · Jan 12, 2019

ManixMiner said:
Having multiple launchers sucks ass for PC gaming.

And it seems inevitable now. Steam being the one that people probably have the biggest stake in though, it'd probably be best if they personally took on the feat of library merging and mixed it with all their existing features. All your games visible in their library, compatible with Steam overlay (forced, if not supported by the launcher), BPM + full controller support, etc. It'd probably be the best way to do it.

Although I feel like AMD / Nvidia could do it too if they wanted. AMD already has a full game menu in their Radeon settings where you can customize performance profiles and everything for games. If they wanted they could build from there and make a proper interface to launch any game from, as well as edit each one to your liking. A console-like interface option for AMD-powered PCs could be interesting.

texhnolyze · Jan 12, 2019

Ever heard of... shortcuts?

erlim · Jan 12, 2019

texhnolyze said:
Ever heard of... shortcuts?

Beautiful.

skullmuffins · Jan 12, 2019

texhnolyze said:
Ever heard of... shortcuts?

The trouble doesn't come from trying to browse installed games, but rather your entire library of owned games. The vast majority of my library is on steam, but I have other games spread across a half-dozen different services and it kind of fucking sucks as far as remembering what I own but don't have installed at the moment.

GhostTrick · Jan 12, 2019

It's not for management reason AND futureproofing reason. (See GFWL)
The only way for it to happen is less launcher. I hope time will do its work. (See GFWL again).

Evolution of Metal · Jan 12, 2019

It is Windows + Discord.

Hit the Win key on the keyboard, type first few letters of the game you want to launch, and Enter.

SuikerBrood · Jan 12, 2019

texhnolyze said:
Ever heard of... shortcuts?

This. And if you think it looks ugly, put them in a folder. I launch games with Windows search anyway.

Only thing that's difficult is games you haven't got installed at the moment.

crazillo · Jan 12, 2019

I love Playnite and it's just the optimal way to keep track of your library on PC. It unifies everything that is otherwise too fragmented for me.

texhnolyze · Jan 12, 2019

skullmuffins said:
The trouble doesn't come from trying to browse installed games, but rather your entire library of owned games. The vast majority of my library is on steam, but I have other games spread across a half-dozen different services and it kind of fucking sucks as far as remembering what I own but don't have installed at the moment.

I see. That might be a problem indeed, but still pretty minor. You can simply install them all and put them on auto run on startup. Everything will be ready at the tray icon. The stores other than Steam don't have as much games available anyway, so browsing your games on each launcher shouldn't be a hassle.

Pargon · Jan 12, 2019

m29a said:
Can't say I've ever been bothered with all the launchers. Is it a slight inconvenience? Sure. But I think a lot of people exaggerate how bad it is. It adds a few extra clicks to launch games, and I don't really find myself forgetting what I have installed either.

This is what it's like to try and launch a Uplay game via Steam:

Multiple UAC prompts that require a password to be typed in.
Prompts from the Uplay client which appear behind the Steam window, and have to be interacted with to launch the game.
The game takes forever to load because it was unable to connect to the Ubisoft servers.
Some part of this process prevented the Steam Overlay from hooking into the game, so Steam Input doesn't work.
Quitting the game kicks you back to a Uplay window rather than Steam.

Now imagine that you're trying to do all that with only a controller in a living room setup - you can't.
Valve has been doing great work with a controller-focused UI, selling their own controllers, and supporting third-party controllers extremely well.
Uplay is the worst, but most third-party clients break that experience.

If these clients would let me launch a game via Steam, not interfere with that process, and get out of the way when I quit the game, I would be far less concerned about buying games on other services.
GOG, Humble, Twitch, and itch.io games generally work great when launched via Steam, as do DRM-free games from other sources.
EA games used to work well, but when they redesigned the client they removed the "quit when closing a game" option, which tends to break subsequent launches of Origin games.

Manually adding/removing these games from Steam when installed/uninstalled is also a pain.

BeI · Jan 12, 2019

Pargon said:
This is what it's like to try and launch a Uplay game via Steam:

Multiple UAC prompts that require a password to be typed in.

Prompts from the Uplay client which appear behind the Steam window, and have to be interacted with to launch the game.

The game takes forever to load because it was unable to connect to the Ubisoft servers.

Some part of this process prevented the Steam Overlay from hooking into the game, so Steam Input doesn't work.

Quitting the game kicks you back to a Uplay window rather than Steam.

Now imagine that you're trying to do all that with only a controller in a living room setup - you can't.
Valve has been doing great work with a controller-focused UI, selling their own controllers, and supporting third-party controllers extremely well.
Uplay is the worst, but most third-party clients break that experience.

If these clients would let me launch a game via Steam, not interfere with that process, and get out of the way when I quit the game, I would be far less concerned about buying games on other services.
GOG, Humble, Twitch, and itch.io games generally work great when launched via Steam, as do DRM-free games from other sources.
EA games used to work well, but when they redesigned the client they removed the "quit when closing a game" option, which tends to break subsequent launches of Origin games.

Manually adding/removing these games from Steam when installed/uninstalled is also a pain.

Nice to see a post considering the controller side of things. Thanks to Steam it's soooooo much easier to play PC games with any input method you want, but some other launchers tend to break that experience, making things like living room pc setups a bigger pain if different launchers cause grief like that. I don't think any current option for library merging (Discord, Playnite, Launch box, etc) works well for both m+b and controller (in terms of support in absolutely any game you launch). Hopefully that can change.

BeI · Jan 12, 2019

Double post somehow

Roven · Jan 12, 2019

The Launcher "problematic" is probably the most overdramatized non-issue on era. It's getting really annoying reading about it every few days. What's exactly is the problem?

Lentic · Jan 12, 2019

Roven said:
The Launcher "problematic" is probably the most overdramatized non-issue on era. It's getting really annoying reading about it every few days. What's exactly is the problem?

Yeah, the whole thing seems overblown. Just because some things are changing that doesn't mean the sky is falling on PC gaming. People will work something out.

Windu · Jan 12, 2019

My OS is my Library Organizer.

water_wendi · Jan 12, 2019

The launcher problem lol The launcher used to be the desktop. It was much more customizable btw.

Cecil · Jan 12, 2019

Roven said:
The Launcher "problematic" is probably the most overdramatized non-issue on era. It's getting really annoying reading about it every few days. What's exactly is the problem?

If you're reading aboiut it every few days, shouldn't you have read that much that you know some of the issues people have with it by now? ;)

Apeach said:
Yeah, the whole thing seems overblown. Just because some things are changing that doesn't mean the sky is falling on PC gaming. People will work something out.

So people shouldn't discuss it now, but rather just accept it and wait and see? Or what are you implying with the "sky is falling" comment? Are there particular aspects of the discussion you think are invalid or overblown? Or are you just not completely sure why it's being discussed as much as it is?

brokenswiftie · Jan 12, 2019

Roven said:
The Launcher "problematic" is probably the most overdramatized non-issue on era. It's getting really annoying reading about it every few days. What's exactly is the problem?

Apeach said:
Yeah, the whole thing seems overblown. Just because some things are changing that doesn't mean the sky is falling on PC gaming. People will work something out.

I have multiple games across multiple services
Since I don't have unlimited space I don't have them all installed
And I have too many to remember which was bought from where
This is a pretty big inconvenience that wasn't there a while back
A Library that can access the API of all the services and show it in a clean format could solve this

Muad'dib · Jan 12, 2019

texhnolyze said:
Ever heard of... shortcuts?

*BARF

Deleted member 13370 · Jan 12, 2019

Pinning shortcuts to the exes on Start or desktop or taskbar is faster than starting them from any launcher, Steam or not.
(And if you don't want to clobber up those you can always search in Start)

I understand why some people find the multiple launchers annoying, but in reality, launching through a client isn't even the most efficient way of starting them so I think it's a weak argument.

thirtypercent · Jan 12, 2019

My way forward is not installing more launchers. I drew the line at Bethesda, I'm done.

Evolution of Metal said:
It is Windows + Discord.

Hit the Win key on the keyboard, type first few letters of the game you want to launch, and Enter.

How does that work? Steam games usually don't appear in the start menu. Which is a good thing, I really don't want my hundreds of installed games showing up in there, it'd be a nightmare. Do they only get added to search?

Roven said:
The Launcher "problematic" is probably the most overdramatized non-issue on era. It's getting really annoying reading about it every few days. What's exactly is the problem?

The other threads are filled with long posts about what the issues are, y'all need to stop asking what the problem is and read them.

SuikerBrood said:
This. And if you think it looks ugly, put them in a folder. I launch games with Windows search anyway.

Only thing that's difficult is games you haven't got installed at the moment.

He's joking because that's friggin' terrible.

Sean Mirrsen · Jan 12, 2019

HP_Wuvcraft said:
God, I hope you're joking.

But it's the only effective way of enforcing fair competition. I'm not going to install yet another useless background program that's sapping my computer's already-limited resources, just so yet another store can enforce their own DRM. If the Epic Store had any redeeming qualities compared to Steam from a consumer's point of view, I may have had a different opinion, but it doesn't, and so I don't.

I got Subnautica for free from the Epic Store, and I deleted the store client and the game itself (beforehand, but it turns out the Epic Store uninstall would have done it for me anyway) once they patched it so it cannot run unless launched through the store client. If they want to split the PC marketplace up like the consoles, so that like it or not you're forced into their ecosystem if you want access to an exclusive game, then I'm going to treat it like I treat the console market. I.e., "If it's not on the platforms I have, then it's not worth my time".

ThereAreFourNaan · Jan 12, 2019

My dream is for all of the major launchers to collaborate on a set of APIs for friends lists, achievements, and launcher integrations. I literally don't care who gets my money for a given purchase, but I do care about having to manage multiple friends lists, having multiple overlays running simultaneously, not being able to have all my games in one place and so on. In principle, I should be able to fire up any client I use, have friends, achievement and playtime tracking transfer between them freely, and launch any game from any of them.

Unfortunately, the ship sailed on this a long time ago. I have some vague hope that GoG Galaxy and Steam could collaborate more closely, but uPlay has already resigned itself to being an irritating parasite latching on to other storefronts that people actually use, Origin is Origin, and the Epic Store is currently too busy to play nice because doing literally everything in it's power to muscle in on Steam's territory. I couldn't tell you what the state of Battle.net is since I never use it.

Evolution of Metal · Jan 12, 2019

thirtypercent said:
That only shows that you have never tried this since Steam games don't appear in the start menu. Which is a good thing, I really don't want my hundreds of installed games showing up in there, it'd be a nightmare.

It does, but I do have Steam games as shortcuts on the desktop. Either way, all of the installed games (Stand-alone clients, uplay, origin) my PC will show up once I start typing the name.

Only have UE4 projects on the Epic Launcher, so I cannot verify whether Epic Store installs work the same way.

And if you have hundreds of games installed, I would say it is a clear user error if you want the games to be installed, but not show up on your computer...

Edit: I also tried Cortana-based launching... It works by opening the first app, but it is about as far as it goes. For example, it will open Overwatch, but it will only get as far as the Battle.net launcher OW windows with the Play button...

Really hit or miss, because managing the desktop with the Xbox controller is meh.

sirap · Jan 12, 2019

As a die-hard fan of the Steam Controller this whole situation just bums me out.

ThereAreFourNaan · Jan 12, 2019

sirap said:
As a die-hard fan of the Steam Controller this whole situation just bums me out.

I'm sure you'll be able to use the brand new SweenyPad within the next 12 months. It will be the only controller compatible with a bunch of new indie games until an exclusivity agreement ends.

#competition

thirtypercent · Jan 12, 2019

Evolution of Metal said:
And if you have hundreds of games installed, I would say it is a clear user error if you want the games to be installed, but not show up on your computer...

They show up in Steam so they're out of the way during 'regular' PC use but I have a place where I can find them all, neatly listed. Thing is, I often just browse and then decide what to play, can't remember everything I have installed so using Windows search wouldn't really work most of the time. And tried Discord again just now, it only imported a fraction of my installed games, its library view is also very limited and just not good enough for my personal needs (Steam's needs an overhaul too but it's still by far the best of them all).

HP_Wuvcraft said:
Discord does a really good job of this.

God, I hope you're joking.

It doesn't as far as I'm concerned but I applaud them for attempting something like this. The execution just isn't there (yet?), way too barebones and feature-less. And not working for the majority of games it seems.

I hope he isn't, got enough to play on the stores I have installed. Want my money? Sell your games there, I don't feel like chasing after devs who decide they're special and what we already have is below them.

PC launcher hell: is library merging the way forward?

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