@gamingonlinux I haven't tried it myself, but I think you can set launch flags in steam to skip launchers.

@gamingonlinux ah, those are there so they can lever in their own network/marketing channel in the future. It's nasty and obvious if you add a launcher just to add ads for your next game or DLC or etc, but if you have a blank there, OOPS SORRY we're just patching it you know.

I kinda wonder if they're required by the publisher at his point, since they're functionally the publisher's marketing channel, not the developer's.

@gamingonlinux I'm pretty certain game launchers are there to force people to stop playing games for a bit, when they inevitably get updated and stop working for a day or two, until Proton Experimental catches up.

It's the PC equivalent to Nintendo's old "why not take a break?" screens, but on a different timescale.

Most of the time, it's: "Stop playing Assassin's Creed and visit the real world." (It's usually Ubisoft breaking their launchers weekly, right?)

@gamingonlinux because the people at @heroiclauncher need something to do 😇

@gamingonlinux There are a couple of driving motivations I can think of, some technical and some business.

Business is for marketing and publisher/distributor links.

Technical is that it can serve as a “boot loader” stage to check integrity of game files (which may also be done by platforms like steam, but you may also distribute on other channels besides steam). The decoupling of the launcher binary from the actual game binary is probably an overall win for reliability.

@gamingonlinux two decent reasons for this game’s launcher;

1(minor). Normally the launcher has game settings so you can make sure to fix any jank settings before launching. Idk why they removed that for the Linux release 🤔

2(major). Shader pre comp. To fix massive stuttering issues of modern PC games they used their launcher to do shader pre comp. Kinda annoying you have to press the button again but that shader pre comp is a life saver, just ask digital foundry lmao

@gamingonlinux what about ulauncher? ok. It is a launcher too. go on.

@gamingonlinux Darktide specifically is half a game that they released incomplete as a shameless cash grab as well, so the worthless launcher just makes a bad look even worse.

@gamingonlinux Likely because every company wants their on walled garden store front keep in their games. And no telling what information these launchers are exfiltrating to the Overlords to be used against us for “monetization”.

There’s probably also DRM considerations involved somewhere. And necessary always online requirements and on and on… :blobcatpensive:

I loathe modern “triple AAAAAAAAAAAA” gaming.

@gamingonlinux they are some of the most fragile things to support in Proton too

@gamingonlinux A launcher. Also a whole new account on a special platform. BTW we're gonna send you notifications while you play. And even though this game is single player only you can't play unless you log in to our network first. Also a bunch of what we promised in this game will actually come out in some DLC you'll have to pay for later. You don't mind if we collect all possible data about you, right? Here spit in this cup.

@gamingonlinux I don't know why these games need launchers, either. Just a waste of processing power.

@gamingonlinux older games or games that (originally) went without external launcher have this probably simply still with, which I can understand on the one hand ... on the other hand also often annoying (in my case with Warframe xD)

@gamingonlinux used to find this so frustrating at Feral, but am very glad we pushed hard on the ability to always disable it. It's pretty cool there though for the screen/reso picker and the mod management stuff!

@gamingonlinux Capitalism breeds innovation, don't you understand?

@gamingonlinux so annoying. Especially when these launchers don't remove yourself even after you uninstall the game

@gamingonlinux It's like they meant to make a launcher to have launch options, but someone forgot to put the options in.

wow.

@gamingonlinux
Don't forget that multiple launchers means multiple drm's, wich means more bloatware in the background (⁠つ⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)⁠つ

@gamingonlinux @dotterian maybe userful case when you restart game to apply settings, but you want not quit game(because you use some specific software like cloud gaming platform that close you session when you quit game)

@gamingonlinux proprietary "anticheat", I can see myself making one in tandem with a game but for Linux, I would have the launcher optional and merge the separate cheater's servers with their windows counterparts.