Easily one of the worst trends to hit PC gaming in the last decade has been major publishersâ obsession with creating their own launchers and digital marketplaces. These are moves that have done little for the user, but make booting up a game fiddlier and more tedious.
You can see why theyâve done so from their points of view: the shopfronts give them a chance to sell things directly, rather than give a cut to Valve or Epic. The proprietary nature of the launcher means they get to have you log in to a specific account, and entangle yourself in all kinds of other locked-in stuff like digital rights management.
For us, though? Itâs a huge pain in the ass. Especially when you buy and launch a game from Steam, and it then has to load a publisherâs launcher on top of that. In just the last few months Iâve been locked out of Madden 22 because EAâs Desktop App couldnât verify my purchase, had Far Cry 6 launches held up because Ubisoftâs launcher wouldnât let me login or sync properly, and wished for a quick death every time Iâve had to do anything with Rockstarâs launcher.
Mercifully, one publisher has now seen the light and will be ditching this approach entirely. Bethesda announced earlier today that they are âsunsettingâ the Bethesda Launcher and marketplace in April, having launched them in 2016, and âmigrating to Steam.â
Bethesda games have of course always been available on Steam, even when the launcher was active, but this move means that the publisher is now moving everything back to Steam. Even if you bought games directly from Bethesda, theyâll soon be transferred back to Valveâs service, in some cases (though not all) with your saved games included. Thereâs a FAQ under the blog if you need to know anything more
Given Bethesda is now a Microsoft company, this is potentially exciting news for anyone who is also annoyed by the recently-purchased Activision Blizzardâs own Battle.net launcher.
