Going against the grain here, but conceptually is that really such a good thing?
Yes, Steam is pretty decent and yes, Valve have consistently shown good business practice and a pro-consumer stance, and yes third party launchers are generally absolute donkey tonk… but isn’t converging onto one launcher like Steam very anti-consumer at its core?
Isn’t this about stopping games from being launched like this:
- Launch Steam
- Launch game, but instead…
- It launches a launcher for the game.
- That launcher launches the game
Going Launcher => Launcher => game.
That should be banned.
It sounds like what you’re interpreting it as is “Games that have their own or alternate launchers should be banned from sale on Steam” (e.g., games available on Epic, EA, etc. shouldn’t be available on Steam).
I’d agree that that’s anti-consumer. But if I buy the game on Steam, it shouldn’t feed me through an additional launcher. If I want to buy the game directly from elsewhere and that requires a different launcher, that’s perfectly fine.
Launcher > Launcher > Game is grotesque. 2 different accounts and an internet connection required just to play a game you ““own””.
Fuck that shit