Which one is your favorite PC launcher and or how would you improve them?

[Era of not Yakuza]

Xbox app = almost like a Trojan horse trying to invade PC gaming
EGS = BAD
GOG 2.0 = Very nice, cloud saves are great, no drm.
Uplay and origin (both I don't use for almost 2 years) = ok
Steam = The best. Never had any bugs, downloads always on maximum speed, I love the new library, excellent customer service, easy to make friends in order to play some games
Battle.net = it's ok, I think it's better than Uplay or Origin.

 

[J2d]

It's steam for bpm, I would barely touch my pc if it didn't exist.

 

[Prelude]

Steam, and the new library is great.
The only thing I'd really like that's currently missing is the ability to custom sort games (maybe being able to give them a hidden custom name) so stuff like Tomb Raider -> Rise of the Tomb Raider -> Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn't all over the place.

 

[Richietto]

Steam is without a doubt my favorite and intact the only one I actually like. The rest are tolerable. For what they could do to make it better? Idk whatever they feel like adding next or whatever.

 

[Deleted member 5086]

I really like a lot of the feature that Steam has. I've also noticed I'm more likely play games that I get on there compared to other launchers (even if said games are free).

 

[thevid]

Steam by far. GoG Galaxy 2.0 is good for managing multiple libraries. Origin, Uplay, Bnet, and Epic are fine. I have no experience with the Xbox app or Windows Store.

I would love it if Steam added the ability to automatically add non-Steam games the way Galaxy 2.0 does. Doing it manually is time consuming.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

The idea of Galaxy 2.0 is neat, but then the problem lies on having to open another launcher when you try to open a game associated with that launcher.

Overall, Steam. Mostly because features. Steam is my #1 place to upload game's screenshots.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

PlayOnline!! Improve by supporting it again.

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my my god playonline and it's still the same to this day bless em.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

I really like a lot of the feature that Steam has. I've also noticed I'm more likely play games that I get on there compared to other launchers (even if said games are free).

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yea it's super far ahead of the other launchers

 

[EloKa]

im sorry if it's inaccurate I see them as just an app I open to launch or buy games so I called them launchers.

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I mean, you're constantly flamebaiting / trolling with this topic since weeks. And you even call Xbox "just a launcher".
Following your "logic" the PS4, Switch, PlayStore and AppStore are also just launchers, so you're technically correct.. I guess?

 

[JudgmentJay]

Steam is great and B.net is pretty good. I'm indifferent toward all the others. I have yet to use EGS and probably never will.

 

[Kthulhu]

I gotta say steam. Itch, GOG, and Xbox's launchers are pretty good.

Honestly all I want from Steam is a better mobile app and Big Picture mode. Outside of that Steam is pretty polished.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

I mean, you're constantly flamebaiting / trolling with this topic since weeks. And you even call Xbox "just a launcher".
Following your "logic" the PS4, Switch, PlayStore and AppStore are also just launchers, so you're technically correct.. I guess?

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I mean the Xbox app on pc for game pass which is just called Xbox hah. Sorry for any confusion again.

 

[Kthulhu]

I picked up Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair back when Epic were giving it away for free, and I still haven't been able to play it, thanks to their DRM. I get this error every time I try to play it, which then closes the game automatically

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EGS like Steam doesn't require DRM. You can launch Satisfactory without EGS running or even installed.

Yooka-Laylee's DRM is probably on Playtonic, not Epic.

 

[eonden]

I will put them in order and say some improvement:

-Steam: the gold standard. I would change the following:

• Rework the music player
• Rework community making it more seamless with the rest of the store.
• Add more social features to make sharing pictures and videos easier.
• Take steam.tv out of beta and heavily promote it.
• Better integration of the different sections
• Update the Steam App so that it is not fire trash.
• Improve Big Picture Mode.
• Add native Cheat Engine (or something like that support)
• Improve Workshop so that you can tie mods to game releases.
• Make getting older versions of the game easier (right now you can use the console command to do it and devs can do it through the betas part in the settings.
• Allow more easy customization of the UI (with colors at least easily).

-Gog Galaxy 2.0 - i quite like the new library, but it still feels like it needs heavy stability improvements.

-Origin - its decent, hasnt really improved much since launch. I would change the whole UI and make it

-uPlay - itsOk.jpg , I like their ubi points stuff, even if recently they have neutered a ton of their value.

-EGS - somehow slower than Steam. The new Library UI is OK, adds 0 extra value when compared to uPlay or Origin. Somehow you cant speak with your friends while in different games?

-Battle.Net: Still feels like something that was supposed to be for a small number of games that gets bloater and bloater with each release. It requires some heavy modifications to make it a proper thing.

-Bethesda: just throw it to the bin and do a different one. It is trash.

-Microsoft Store / Xbox App: it is much more stable than it was before. Still the whole formatting of the files makes it a mess and not something I would actively use.

The main problem of the improvements is that I would make most of them add all the stuff from Steam lol

 

[Deleted member 16452]

I will put them in order and say some improvement:

-Steam: the gold standard. I would change the following:

• Rework the music player
• Rework community making it more seamless with the rest of the store.
• Add more social features to make sharing pictures and videos easier.
• Take steam.tv out of beta and heavily promote it.
• Better integration of the different sections
• Update the Steam App so that it is not fire trash.
• Improve Big Picture Mode.
• Add native Cheat Engine (or something like that support)
• Improve Workshop so that you can tie mods to game releases.
• Make getting older versions of the game easier (right now you can use the console command to do it and devs can do it through the betas part in the settings.
• Allow more easy customization of the UI (with colors at least easily).

-Gog Galaxy 2.0 - i quite like the new library, but it still feels like it needs heavy stability improvements.

-Origin - its decent, hasnt really improved much since launch. I would change the whole UI and make it

-uPlay - itsOk.jpg , I like their ubi points stuff, even if recently they have neutered a ton of their value.

-EGS - somehow slower than Steam. The new Library UI is OK, adds 0 extra value when compared to uPlay or Origin. Somehow you cant speak with your friends while in different games?

-Battle.Net: Still feels like something that was supposed to be for a small number of games that gets bloater and bloater with each release. It requires some heavy modifications to make it a proper thing.

-Bethesda: just throw it to the bin and do a different one. It is trash.

-Microsoft Store / Xbox App: it is much more stable than it was before. Still the whole formatting of the files makes it a mess and not something I would actively use.

The main problem of the improvements is that I would make most of them add all the stuff from Steam lol

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Spot on post my god.

battle.net is a legit shameful launcher for the amount of money it pulls in.

I'm actually hyped for the rumors about a new big picture mode on steam too.

 

[Chief Malik]

Steam, because it is a fully-fledged platform and not a launcher :).

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[Deleted member 8852]

Steam is the only publisher-agnostic one I use, but I accept companies making and maintaining their own launcher for games they have developed themselves.

 

[ShadowAUS]

I will put them in order and say some improvement:

-Steam: the gold standard. I would change the following:

• Rework the music player
• Rework community making it more seamless with the rest of the store.
• Add more social features to make sharing pictures and videos easier.
• Take steam.tv out of beta and heavily promote it.
• Better integration of the different sections
• Update the Steam App so that it is not fire trash.
• Improve Big Picture Mode.
• Add native Cheat Engine (or something like that support)
• Improve Workshop so that you can tie mods to game releases.
• Make getting older versions of the game easier (right now you can use the console command to do it and devs can do it through the betas part in the settings.
• Allow more easy customization of the UI (with colors at least easily).

-Gog Galaxy 2.0 - i quite like the new library, but it still feels like it needs heavy stability improvements.

-Origin - its decent, hasnt really improved much since launch. I would change the whole UI and make it

-uPlay - itsOk.jpg , I like their ubi points stuff, even if recently they have neutered a ton of their value.

-EGS - somehow slower than Steam. The new Library UI is OK, adds 0 extra value when compared to uPlay or Origin. Somehow you cant speak with your friends while in different games?

-Battle.Net: Still feels like something that was supposed to be for a small number of games that gets bloater and bloater with each release. It requires some heavy modifications to make it a proper thing.

-Bethesda: just throw it to the bin and do a different one. It is trash.

-Microsoft Store / Xbox App: it is much more stable than it was before. Still the whole formatting of the files makes it a mess and not something I would actively use.

The main problem of the improvements is that I would make most of them add all the stuff from Steam lol

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Hear hear. Good post, completely agree! I would put the Rockstar Launcher in the same tier as Bethesda as well.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

I haven't even touched so many launchers, I'll find an excuse to try Ubi and rockstar

 

[Iztok]

They all server my purpose (I use Origin, Uplay, Steam and Blizzard launcher regularly).

MS Store is just broken, however. They need to completely redesign that in the backend as well as frontend.

 

[RPGamer92]

Steam, crack down on hentai games.

 

[Deleted member 5086]

I haven't even touched so many launchers, I'll find an excuse to try Ubi and rockstar

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Yeah these two and Bethesda are ones that I haven't really gotten around to using.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

They all server my purpose (I use Origin, Uplay, Steam and Blizzard launcher regularly).

MS Store is just broken, however. They need to completely redesign that in the backend as well as frontend.

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This is so true I didn't even know the Xbox app was a store too for the longest time.

 

[Deleted member 15476]

To this day I have zero clue what the beth launcher looks like

 

[Deleted member 16452]

To this day I have zero clue what the beth launcher looks like

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I wanna keep it that way personally

 

[Menchin]

Steam because I put all my games on there

I'd remove the fuck ugly, poorly made and oftentimes slow new design

 

[Ghostwalker]

Steam, crack down on hentai games.

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You can tell steam to hide them, or is this an addiction thing and you have a library of shame.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

I don't even want to know how many games I bought on steam but never played.

It must be an absurd number.

 

[Minsc]

I tend to favor the desktop as the launcher to my games. I make a desktop shortcut and then when I want to play the game I click the shortcut. When the game is done I'll delete the shortcut and put a new one. It helps me focus because I don't like to have more than 5 or 6 game shortcuts at a time.

It's also pretty universal in terms of compatibility with different store fronts, so you normally don't have to worry about a store or game not supporting it. Even emulators often can create desktop shortcuts for specific games if you wish.

 

[eonden]

Spot on post my god.

battle.net is a legit shameful launcher for the amount of money it pulls in.

I'm actually hyped for the rumors about a new big picture mode on steam too.

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BPM is gonna happen once they finish the rest of Steam UI 2.0 and unify everything similar to how m.webpage works (basically follow the mobile example to scale / modify websites to different profiles).

Hear hear. Good post, completely agree! I would put the Rockstar Launcher in the same tier as Bethesda as well.

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I have 0 idea of Rockstart Launcher, but I guess it would make it so that it doesnt uninstall games you are supposed to play, unlike Bethesda Launcher at launch.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

I wonder if the Bethesda launcher is worse than rockstar

 

[Abaddon]

I wish there was a way to merge Steam and Gog Galaxy 2.0. Steam has so many amazing features that have become a necessity for me.

Big Picture Mode and Remote Play allow me to play games on my TV downstairs (PC is in upstairs office opposite side of the house) via my Nvidia Shield without having to run additional cables with an easy to use, controller focused interface.

Steam Controller configs allow me to either add controller support to games that don't have it or tweak those that do, or simply connect any old controller I have with a functional setup that means it will just work (think using a DS4 in an Xinput game).

Then you have things like Remote Play Anywhere and Together that are just making it an even better platform.

I just wish their library management was better, both for Steam and Non-Steam games, especially when adding external games is a hassle to get them to function with the above. In this regards Gog is the gold standard. Automatic syncing with all your launcher libraries, tons of filter and organisation settings and scraping game information basically are making it almost on par with the best media library management programs out there. Unfortunately I don't often use it as it's missing all the features I regularly use in Steam.

Everything else is equal below those as nothing has any particular standout features and just come across as a storefront/launcher. I've slightly relented on my EGS stance of not using it as I broke down for the free games but it's still not even on par with Origin or Uplay when it comes to features.

 

[ShadowAUS]

I wonder if the Bethesda launcher is worse than rockstar

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The Bethesda launcher is definitely worse but not by a massive amount. Rockstar is somewhere between Beth and B.net

 

[EloKa]

This is so true I didn't even know the Xbox app was a store too for the longest time.

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The Xbox App was released in August 2019. You are (maybe?) talking about the Microsoft Store which is a completely different thing.

 

[eonden]

The Xbox App was released in August 2019. You are (maybe?) talking about the Microsoft Store which is a completely different thing.

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Lets be honest, Xbox App uses the same backend from the Microsoft Store, so it still has the same core problems, just with a better presentation,

 

[Deleted member 16452]

The Xbox App was released in August 2019. You are (maybe?) talking about the Microsoft Store which is a completely different thing.

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Nah you can apparently buy games on the Xbox app and its outside the normal MS store.

 

[Deleted member 10601]

yea it's super far ahead of the other launchers

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Because it is not just a launcher. It's a whole ecosystem.

 

[Sweeney Swift]

Steam. I honestly really like the updated library look

I haven't been to GOG in a while

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

Which one is the cheapest for the game I'm buying, because that one is my favorite.

 

[Deleted member 16452]

Because it is not just a launcher. It's a whole ecosystem.

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I guess?

 

[GhostTrick]

I mean, you're constantly flamebaiting / trolling with this topic since weeks. And you even call Xbox "just a launcher".
Following your "logic" the PS4, Switch, PlayStore and AppStore are also just launchers, so you're technically correct.. I guess?

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Let's not forget that poster made a bad faith thread in "revenge" and accused many posters here of crimes such as Racism, harassment, death threats and doxxing.

 

[Polyh3dron]

Favorite is GOG 2.0 since I can actually see all my games in it instead of forgetting about my Origin, UPlay, Epic, Xbox, and Bethesda launcher games, and I would improve it by being able to section off the console games that I can't install on my PC from the games that I can actually install and launch on my PC.

EDIT: Forgot to mention my Blizzard and Rockstar launcher games lol

 

[aevanhoe]

Steam definitely has the best features, but I don't like how it looks visually.

 

[Deleted member 6056]

I can add any non steam game to my list by entering its path on my pc so I just use it now.

 

[Stickman]

I'm very new to the PC ecosystem so not invested in any launcher yet. I think the Steam client is an incredibly ugly, confusing, inconsistent and overcrowded piece of software. I actually like the barebonesness of the pure game launchers like EGS and the publisher specific ones. Don't need all the extra features on top of buying and launching games. Not a big online multiplayer guy though. One store for all would still be more convenient though.

 

[RavFiveFour]

None it's something you pass, give me access right to the game's menu.

 

[ghostcrew]

This is so true I didn't even know the Xbox app was a store too for the longest time.

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The Xbox App was released in August 2019. You are (maybe?) talking about the Microsoft Store which is a completely different thing.

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Nah you can apparently buy games on the Xbox app and its outside the normal MS store.

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Edit: I'm not even right here. Just checked and the old Xbox app totally has a Store tab. So yeah, they've both got a storefront in them. Don't need to use the Microsoft Store for games.

Confusingly, there are kinda three different applications for Xbox/store so you're both kinda right. The original Xbox 'console companion' app doesn't have a store. You'd use the Microsoft Store alongside it.

The current Xbox app does have a store in it. I think people almost entirely use it for Game Pass but you can totally buy games from the app. There's a whole Store tab.

 

[Thardin]

Steam is obviously going to be the most robust store front and launcher due to the sheer volume of things available.

Personally, I really like the Battle.net launcher and how well Blizzard has integrated the friend/chat system into all of their games. I personally found the friend system in Destiny 2 got noticeably more convoluted after swapping over to Steam. That is to be expected with the bnet launcher being a more enclosed ecosystem, but it is really convenient being able to hit up a buddy that is playing WoW while I'm playing Destiny or Ovewatch or Diablo.

 

[Deleted member 3196]

Steam because of Big Picture. I use my PC on my TV so games releasing on other launchers exclusively becomes a pain in the ass when there's DRM involved. I've never got on with Playnite and have found it very difficult to manage my library on it, or I'd just launch all my stuff through that app.

That said, Steam's ubiquity has allowed other solutions to crop up. UWPHook and GloSC are great for Windows Store games, while OSOL works for almost everything else if you don't mind putting some work in. I have successfully added every UPlay, EGS, Origin and Battle.net game with it.

SteamGridDB Manager is a tool with a lot of potential for streamlining what all the above do, but it is still early days.

Though I think everyone would prefer it if Valve baked in some GOG 2.0 features to the client that took some of the pain out of adding games from lots of different places. Adding basic .exe files has never been an adequate solution, and it's even less adequate now.