Fallout 76: Bethesda confirms to PC Gamer that it will not be on Steam at launch

Actual competitors to Steam:

GOG
Itch.io

That's about it. Every "let's lock down exclusives and do nothing else, engaging in extreme price control, minimal to no third party publishingm and let's not actually update our client to have new meaningful features " is not competition. It won't ever be. Jesus christ, Origin is worse now than it was fucking 3 years ago.

potatohead said:

No it fucking isn't

Pull your head out of Gabe's ass for a second and realize that publishers and developers having a choice of how to distribute the games is why Pc gaming is good

Advocating compliance and less choice for developers is bullshit

Here dear take my 30% of all sales even though I don't have to give you this lmao what bullshit

The money ideally goes to the people making the game sorry that's what an open platform is it means not being forced to release your games on the most popular vendor

Fuck off with the steam worship such garbage

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Nah, advocating for less choice for consumers is bullshit.
Steam doesn't and hasn't ever taken 30% of all sales either.

On paper, competition with steam is good: but everyone else trying to do it seems less consumer friendly. The end result is the competition doesn't breed the kind of progress that benefits the consumer, but rather breeds the next big get rich schemes for major publishers. Things like loot-boxes and free-to-play mechanics in full priced games.

I think GOG does the best job in being consumer friendly, steam comes second, and I feel everyone else is miles behind. I also hate having multiple "clients" on my PC for no reason, as they do not benefit me as a consumer. Does it make prices more competitive? I really don't think it does.

Ubi-soft games are particularly annoying as they retain uplay when they are on steam, which is pretty slow to load up.

funky said:

Good.


Valve has completely lost the plot on how to manage Steam and if pubs can do well by avoiding it entirely then they should get away from it as quick as they can

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How has Valve lost the plot how to manage Steam? Because some people find somewhat crappy games or asset flips? I rarely see those myself when checking discovery queue. Or is the issue something else?

Also, hopefully Bethesda will next cut the middlemen in physical media and start selling physical copies on their own website, to get those sweet % cuts back to make mediocre Fallout games again.

Derrick01 said:

People who say this by this point should be forced to explain why and how it benefits the consumer. And not with the token "competition is good" statement that you learned in econ 101, actually explain how this supposed competition benefits us using the other clients out there as examples.

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no shut up

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Akronis said:

It's just as bizarre to me to see people fighting against their own interests to benefit a faceless corporation that doesn't give two shits about them.

That applies to both Valve and Bethesda, but Valve is generally not making things worse on PC with their platform.

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Fighting against my own interests? lol It literally makes no difference to me. We're talking seconds to open a different launcher. I already use three quite a lot as it is: Origin (for Origin Access which is a phenomenal value proposition) and GoG for DRM free games which I'll always prioritise over Steam where possible. Steam is my "if GoG and Origin Access don't have it" last resort these days. I'm fine with spending a few seconds to open Beth's launcher too.

This isn't just a matter of launchers, by the way, because once you start putting exclusive games on your launcher, it becomes a service, and there are different expectations. Will Bethesda, known for releasing buggy as shit games, have anywhere near the amount of resources required to maintain a customer support service, frequent patching, anti-cheat services... will they crack down further on modding? How will they handle refunds? Can they withstand hacking attempts? How secure is their infrastructure when even companies like Sony have been breached? Is my payment info safe to be stored in Bethesda's launcher?

It's not about "oh I love Valve the company that for years conned spec work out of people for TF2", it's about the overton window of pro-consumer amenities. A new publisher leaves a universal launcher/service to start their own, chances are they will want to shift the standard towards benefiting them more than the consumer, and this will get worse and worse as more publishers retreat to their own island. It's not as simple as just getting a better cut of sales. What if they don't want to offer refunds for example? Or they don't want to allow certain modifications. Or their service will only focus on certain regions, leaving some countries locked out?

BBQ_of_DOOM said:

I have a ton of games on Steam. It takes what, 5 seconds to find a game on your desktop or using the search bar?

It seems like a wildly overblown issue from folks who are supposed to be somewhat agnostic about this stuff.

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Indeed, it's almost as if people want PC to become a closed Steam platform. The beauty of PC is that it's an open platform. There is nothing wrong with this move by Bethesda. Even Epic is doing the same on Android right now with Fortnite.

potatohead said:

No it fucking isn't

Pull your head out of Gabe's ass for a second and realize that publishers and developers having a choice of how to distribute the games is why Pc gaming is good

Advocating compliance and less choice for developers is bullshit

Here dear take my 30% of all sales even though I don't have to give you this lmao what bullshit

The money ideally goes to the people making the game sorry that's what an open platform is it means not being forced to release your games on the most popular vendor

Fuck off with the steam worship such garbage

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Yeah dude because PSN / Nintendo eShop / Xbox / Apple / Google play / etc. Totally don't do the same thing!

robotrock said:

Good.

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.

Darkstorne said:

Fighting against my own interests? lol It literally makes no difference to me. We're talking seconds to open a different launcher. I already use three quite a lot as it is: Origin (for Origin Access which is a phenomenal value proposition) and GoG for DRM free games which I'll always prioritise over Steam where possible. Steam is my "if GoG and Origin Access don't have it" last resort these days. I'm fine with spending a few seconds to open Beth's launcher too.

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Cool then why are you even in this thread posting bud? This is for people who want to discuss what difference it makes for them.

Derrick01 said:

People who say this by this point should be forced to explain why and how it benefits the consumer. And not with the token "competition is good" statement that you learned in econ 101, actually explain how this supposed competition benefits us using the other clients out there as examples.

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because vulvas teks the 30 percents m8

Lmao how foolish the steam advocacy group is here they legitimately can't accept that other pc gamers and half the people in this thread don't care about always using steam lolll

Reality check! People care more about games than steam sorry

And all these people want an open platform but demand games on steam oh the fucking irony of it all Lmao

potatohead said:

Lmao how foolish the steam advocacy group is here they legitimately can't accept that other pc gamers and half the people in this thread don't care about always using steam lolll

Reality check! People care more about games than steam sorry

And all these people want an open platform but demand games on steam oh the fucking irony of it all Lmao

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Incandescence said:

How is the online on Bethesda net launcher?

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It's barebones. I can't find a freindslist anywhere and all the links at the top for community, news, shop etc just opens them in your Web browser. Much like Bnet I can't find a way to hide games. Just seems completely pointless. Hopefully I'll be able to launch the game through steam and never have to look at this thing as it doesn't seem to have any functionality.

potatohead said:

No it fucking isn't

Pull your head out of Gabe's ass for a second and realize that publishers and developers having a choice of how to distribute the games is why Pc gaming is good

Advocating compliance and less choice for developers is bullshit

Here dear take my 30% of all sales even though I don't have to give you this lmao what bullshit

The money ideally goes to the people making the game sorry that's what an open platform is it means not being forced to release your games on the most popular vendor

Fuck off with the steam worship such garbage

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XBL, PSN, Amazon, GMG etc all take 30%

pswii60 said:

Indeed, it's almost as if people want PC to become a closed Steam platform. The beauty of PC is that it's an open platform.

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The beauty of an open platform totally lies in every fucking publisher forcing its specific storefront on you.

Akronis said:

Cool then why are you even in this thread posting bud? This is for people who want to discuss what difference it makes for them.

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"If you're not complaining, you shouldn't say anything."

potatohead said:

And all these people want an open platform but demand games on steam oh the fucking irony of it all Lmao

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If we're talking about open platforms, there's GOG which is DRM-Free and I seriously doubt Fallout 76 will ever be released on it.

potatohead said:

Lmao how foolish the steam advocacy group is here they legitimately can't accept that other pc gamers and half the people in this thread don't care about always using steam lolll

Reality check! People care more about games than steam sorry

And all these people want an open platform but demand games on steam oh the fucking irony of it all Lmao

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You act like anyone here is saying the game has to be exclusively on steam. We just want it on steam as another option.

After all the great thing about PC gaming is choice ;)

Darkstorne said:

"If you're not complaining, you shouldn't say anything."

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yea probably wasn't the best thing to say, no doubt.

BernardoOne said:

Jesus christ, Origin is worse now than it was fucking 3 years ago.

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Nah.

potatohead said:

No it fucking isn't

Pull your head out of Gabe's ass for a second and realize that publishers and developers having a choice of how to distribute the games is why Pc gaming is good

Advocating compliance and less choice for developers is bullshit

Here dear take my 30% of all sales even though I don't have to give you this lmao what bullshit

The money ideally goes to the people making the game sorry that's what an open platform is it means not being forced to release your games on the most popular vendor

Fuck off with the steam worship such garbage

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The previous comment doesn't relate to Steam and generally holds true.
Absolute price control is shit, we see it for digital sales on consoles all the time.
Third party distriubtors have done a great job competing. This is particularly true with Steam, where the Devs / Pubs can get 100% via their own distribution channel since key generation is free, and they can cut any deal they want with third party key sellers, again with Valve getting 0%. This doesn't exist with pretty much every other PC gamer distributor and certainly not on consoles (which take well over 30%)

I personally have no problems with stores like Uplay etc, because they're available on Steam too. Locking the game to one shitty storefront isn't good, and it isn't competition either.

i'm fine with different launchers generally but some of them are garbage and steam is generally fine

i can't leave battlenet open when i play games because it'll usually use anywhere from 10-25% of my cpu doing absolutely nothing

Derrick01 said:

You act like anyone here is saying the game has to be exclusively on steam. We just want it on steam as another option.

After all the great thing about PC gaming is choice ;)

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And Bethesda can circumvent the 30% by selling a Steam Version on their own website. But I don't see that option, which would be real competition.

Lashley said:

XBL, PSN, Amazon, GMG etc all take 30%

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Console manufacturers actually take a forced cut out of every sale as royalties (roughly 16-20%) even when they DON'T SELL A COPY directly.
Plus the reseller cut when they do, of course. Which means the standard 30% circa.

aeolist said:

i'm fine with different launchers generally but some of them are garbage and steam is generally fine

i can't leave battlenet open when i play games because it'll usually use anywhere from 10-25% of my cpu doing absolutely nothing

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that's what they meant by competition

Good

Steam is as poor of a software as Itunes is. They need to revamp it, and it should have happend years ago.

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico said:

Console manufacturers actually take a forced cut out of every sale as royalties (roughly 20%) even when they DON'T SELL A COPY directly.
Plus the reseller cut when they do, of course. Which means the standard 30% circa.

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The funniest part is if it's all about the "30%" they could just resell keys from Steam because Valve doesn't charge you the cut for creating keys.

I'm fine with this. PC games shouldn't revolve around Steam

I'd be annoyed if I was getting this for PC for sure. Too many launchers these days.

If I get FO76 then it'll be getting it on PS4 as I retired my PC from AAA releases this year.

Lashley said:

I personally have no problems with stores like Uplay etc, because they're available on Steam too. Locking the game to one shitty storefront isn't good, and it isn't competition either.

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Yeah I have no complaints with Ubisoft's method.

Well, a minor complaint. It's that getting it on steam means paying more because every other key is uplay. But I've accepted that and just wait for a reasonable sale to get it on steam. I'm happy in the end that I still have the OPTION at all.

Kyougar said:

And Bethesda can circumvent the 30% by selling a Steam Version on their own website. But I don't see that option, which would be real competition.

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Oh shit I didn't even think of that. Yeah anyone selling a steamworks key doesn't have to pay anything to valve they get the full 30%. There it is, the perfect option for everyone and yet beth won't do that.

Mbolibombo said:

Good

Steam is as poor of a software as Itunes is. They need to revamp it, and it should have happend years ago.

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Lmao have you ever used the Bethesda launcher

Mbolibombo said:

Good

Steam is as poor of a software as Itunes is. They need to revamp it, and it should have happend years ago.

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You've never played on PC in your life, have you?

How do I meet up with my friends for fallout 76, all i have installed is the besthesda launcher I don't like Discord because the user interface is too complicated

i cant find my friends list

I haven't bought any steam games yet because i've only pre-ordered falliut 76 so since it isn't going to be steam luckily i dont need anyone on there

Shocked? Has any of the Bethesda online games ever been on Steam at launch?

TheRedSnifit said:

Lmao have you ever used the Bethesda launcher

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I have, it's not good. But it could improve, something Steam has barely done since it's initial launch.

Lashley said:

You've never played on PC in your life, have you?

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I have, for a very long time. I'm just not stuck with the mindset that I have to play on Steam, since it's so poor I go for other options when availible.

Again I can't stress enough that we're talking about putting trust in Bethesda, makers of SKYRIM, to make a service with a sturdy infrastructure and a bug-free client. Bethesda. Todd Howard Bethesda.

The second FO76 goes live, hackers will have a field day.

Mad said:

How do I meet up with my friends for fallout 76, all i have installed is the besthesda launcher I don't like Discord because the user interface is too complicated

i cant find my friends list

I haven't bought any steam games yet because i've only pre-ordered falliut 76 so since it isn't going to be steam luckily i dont need anyone on there

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My guess will be an in game freinds list.

Oh yes, launch your multiplayer focused game on your launcher that barely has any features like a chat system or even friend's lists, despite running your own MMO for years. Very appealing.

I totally wanna manage 10 different friends list and redo them every year publishers and lose access to a ton of other social features, it's a ton of fun.

The lack of NPCs and actual in depth quests (will most likely be similar to boring radiant quests in F4) already made the game a tough sale. No Steam is the final straw.

The biggest problem I have with multiple launchers is that everyone wants to just rewrite all the tech regarding modern launchers and they usually suck for quite some time before maturing. For example Origin (at least used to) download game installers first taking up to like 50 GB of space, then installing it taking another chunk of disk space before erasing the setup. Origin also consumes one CPU core for UI drawing from time to time.

Also with Uplay some of the updates are larger than on Steam for the same game, not sure if it's just about compression or what. In general Steam has solved updating & connection reliability issues quite well already and it is frustrating to encounter same old problems again with new launchers. I understand _why_ companies are doing it but as end-user it is still annoying.

Friend lists is another problem and having shitton of launchers leads to fragmented lists. Of course people can just keep using Steam or Discord for chatting but when you want to play you need to actually use those features and usually just about everything is more unreliable than on Steam (or Battle.net)

Great time for shit downloads and poor support for basic stuff. Niiicccceeeeee.

Lashley said:

You've never played on PC in your life, have you?

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There is no easier software in the world to use than steam. I cannot understand what people are doing on their computers that is requiring them to do anything other than click install then play the game.

Anyways enjoy your pay only mods, not that it matters this game is gonna bomb hard regardless.

Mbolibombo said:

I have, it's not good. But it could improve, something Steam has barely done since it's initial launch.

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Wat

You realise nobody can take you seriously if you post nonsense like this.

Blue said:

Good. More companies need to stop giving away 30% of their revenue to Valve.

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Sure. Enjoy less features and no refund for the same price.

Derrick01 said:

People who say this by this point should be forced to explain why and how it benefits the consumer. And not with the token "competition is good" statement that you learned in econ 101, actually explain how this supposed competition benefits us using the other clients out there as examples.

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For example, Uplay allows you to spend 100 uplay points(which you get by playing their games and unlocking achievements) to get 20% discount codes. Sometimes they have promotions even for pre-orders. I pre-ordered FC5 from Uplay for $48 before release. They can't do that on Steam. Uplay also has weekly challenges for in-game items and currency rewards. Steam doesn't have that.

Nzyme32 said:

Feel free to explain how Bethesda.net actually improves and supports PC games better than any other PC game distributor, and how little competition there is to Steam.

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I've yet to see what Bethesda can offer me with their client. I'll hold my judgement till I play FO76 but it's a good move from Bethesda to have their own client IMO.

One less game to buy. I was already an unlikely purchaser though.

demosthenes said:

Some people want steam to burn.

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I wonder if those people are old enough to know what PC gaming was like before Steam.

It was a mess of file paths everywhere and having to manually update every game.

Nintendo said:

For example, Uplay allows you to spend 100 uplay points(which you get by playing their games and unlocking achievements) to get 20% discount codes. Sometimes they have promotions even for pre-orders. I pre-ordered FC5 from Uplay for $48 before release. They can't do that on Steam. Uplay also has weekly challenges for in-game items and currency rewards. Steam doesn't have that.

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Uplay is a good example in how the games are available on Steam too.

That's genuine competition, not bullshit like this.