Which game launcher are you only using because you have to?

[Lauren Morton]

Hey PC gamers, apologies for the delayed forum post this week—I was away at GDC last week! But while I was gone, last week's episode was all about game launchers. Our senior editor Robin Valentine recently undertook the daunting task of reviewing game launchers for 2024. His conclusion? Yeah, Steam really is still the best option. But we wish it had more genuine competition. The Epic launcher is still really trailing behind in basic features and GOG 2.0 isn't quite the perfect hub that we hoped it would be. Not to mention publisher-specific launchers; most of us are just using those under duress. Which is why I ask:

Which game launcher are you only using because you have to?​

I think we all have that one launcher that's only installed on our system because one particular game requires it. For a long time that was the EA app with The Sims 4 for me. It's on Steam now, but I've kept the EA app installed out of force of habit. On the other end though, the unified Minecraft launcher for the two main game versions and spinoffs is actually pretty decent in my experience and I don't resent needing it—I wouldn't say the same of the Xbox app on PC though. So which launcher would you happily ditch if its publisher would just put its games on a 3rd party store?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

If it wasnt forced on me I wouldnt have EA installed, and I pretty much only have Epic to get free games, and for Alan Wake 2 recently.

Steam is by far the best and I'd much prefer everything to be there. I dont have anything against GOG apart from wishing Galaxy worked a lot better. I used it for quite a while but got frustrated that it keeps desyncing from the other launchers. I tried PlayNite and found it had similar issues as GOG with desyncing, and also when I linked Gamepass it listed every game available even if I'd never downloaded them, which was, a lot. Probably could have sorted it out given some time, but when I sit at my desk I usually just want to play something so I gave up on it.

I actually dont mind the Xbox app, when I have Gamepass its worked well enough in whatever I've played even if its nowhere near as slick or feature rich as Steam.

 

[steeleman21]

Big shoutout to Robin for going through that pain; I'm miserable even just thinking about EA and Ubisoft's launchers. Maybe it varies from PC to PC, but I find the Xbox app on PC to be the most insufferable of the launchers I occasionally have to use. Game Pass's offer of a substantial library for a fairly low monthly price is obviously very tempting, so I'm willing to persevere, but the Xbox app on PC always seems to find a way to frustrate me.

More often than not, I find I have to restart the app because it doesn't seem to acknowledge any installed games. Also, now whenever I launch the Xbox app, it automatically launches the EA app even if I'm not wanting to play anything EA related (and EA always seems to have logged me out btw) - yay, double the misery! Every time there's an update, the app disappears from my system tray, or the appicon breaks, or both. Also, not sure if it's strictly the app's fault, but trying to join friends or organise parties on games launched through the Xbox app is always janky - "I'm online, can you not see me?", "Hold on, let me restart the game", "I keep getting a connection error" etc.

But to provide a bit of balance, the interface does appear to be becoming more responsive as time goes on - it's no longer a slog to scroll through the full list of games, as it loads the next chunk of games.

 

[Lauren Morton]

I dont have anything against GOG apart from wishing Galaxy worked a lot better.

This is basically how we all felt, yeah. I really wanted GOG's vision of this magically unified library to work but the reality just hasn't held up.

Also, not sure if it's strictly the app's fault, but trying to join friends or organise parties on games launched through the Xbox app is always janky

This is exactly the big issue I had with the Xbox app! Joining a party to voice chat with a friend who was playing from an Xbox never seemed to work. Invites wouldn't go through. Microphones wouldn't pick up. We'd fail to connect. Just constant problems.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

This is basically how we all felt, yeah. I really wanted GOG's vision of this magically unified library to work but the reality just hasn't held up.


This is exactly the big issue I had with the Xbox app! Joining a party to voice chat with a friend who was playing from an Xbox never seemed to work. Invites wouldn't go through. Microphones wouldn't pick up. We'd fail to connect. Just constant problems.

I thought Galaxy was great up until a couple of years ago, it got worse for some reason and I kind of gave up quite fast on it.

I dont have any friends on Xbox so never tried to do anything other than launch a single player game. If I play something co-op its on Steam. I did play a bit of Battlefront 2 with a mate not so long ago on the EA app through Epic which worked OKish most of the time.

 

[Alm]

The one I actually use and have to put up with is the Battle.net launcher. I also have EA, Ubisoft, Epic, Rockstar, and Xbox which rarely get used.

Steam would be best for all, but c'est la vie.

 

[McStabStab]

Pretty much any launcher outside of Steam I'm putting up with just because I have to.

• Rockstar Launcher (sucks)
• Paradox Launcher (sucks)
• Epic Games (tolerable)
• X-Box App (sucks - too many steps for cross-platform voice chat)
• Battle.net Launcher (tolerable)

 

[Brian Boru]

Which game launcher are you only using because you have to?

All of them. I don't use any of them to launch games, so they have no value for me. Discussed in more detail in last year's thread.

Robin Valentine recently undertook the daunting task of reviewing game launchers for 2024

Re GOG Galaxy, Robin mentions "easy reference for my collection" as his use. In this post, I mention how some of us don't use it anymore due to its inaccuracy—looks like GOG isn't maintaining it.

A pity he doesn't Mention Playnite, which is the main other app which deserves to be called 'Launcher' and has superseded Galaxy these days—the others mentioned are more Libraries or Storefronts. Other smaller launchers include Photon and LaunchBox. ETA: but I've dropped Playnite too due to syncing trouble leading to inaccuracy.

Has any article looked at Razer Cortex or GeForce Experience or the equivalent Radeon Software for launching?

Also not mentioned are BigFish, GameHouse and WildTangent launchers, each of which have many thousands of PC desktop games.

Anyway, for me with games in at least 6 locations, I avoid actively using launchers and just passively put up with them doing their updates and security checks while I go grab a coffee or something else while waiting for the game.

 

[Zloth]

Steam is best. Like I said last year, that's pretty sad given how little it's changed in the past decade.

GOG is pretty good, too, though it kept getting desynced from its cloud save when I was playing Cyberpunk. Also, the overlay screenshot system keeps including the fool mouse pointer! I had a few good shots ruined because there's an arrow pointer right in the middle of the screen.

EA's gave me such a bad experience with Mass Effect Legendary that I've stayed away from the new Jedi game.

 

[mjs warlord]

i only have a few games on epic,gog and ea.. the rest are on steam.
The first ever game i bought in a shop with just an id card for steam i felt cheated because i did not have a physical disc in my hand but then i got how it worked.

No problems installing steam and my games when i got a new pc and more importantly no myore instances where i could not put games i own on a new pc just because somebodys system says its already activated.... they are .... by me

 

[Frindis]

Ubisoft Connect, EA Play, and Amazon Games. None of them are good and none will be missed.

 

[Colif]

All of the ones I use I would prefer not to.

So that is Batttlenet (or whatever Blizzard call it ), Steam & Xbox games. I much prefer to just load game and not have to load another program to start the game. Call me old fashioned. Dinosaur... relic of a past we owned our games and didn't rely on servers to play them.

 

[Brian Boru]

Call me old fashioned. Dinosaur... relic of a past

Hang on… you're our guy from the future!

 

[Colif]

Call me Marty. I am in the past and the future at the same time... I wonder, where did I park that Delorean?

 

[Pifanjr]

Anyway, for me with games in at least 6 locations, I avoid actively using launchers and just passively put up with them doing their updates and security checks while I go grab a coffee or something else while waiting for the game.

This is how I do it as well. I appreciate each launcher for keeping my games up to date and doing cloud saves, but I don't interact with them besides that, except for the Steam Workshop.

The Steam Workshop is great because it's so convenient and has so many mods, but that's also the main problem. Because it is so convenient and popular, there are a lot of mods that aren't released anywhere else. Meaning that if you do get a game from a different launcher, you can't access those mods (unless I've missed a way to download mods from the Workshop without owning the game).

I would much prefer doing a little bit more work for my mods than to be stuck using a specific launcher.

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

Epic'.
I dislike them for many reasons and has been for years, bought something there once and had extreme difficulties to the point official distributor in Poland had to step in and help me 'cause their own system 'lost' a code for a game I bought through them. And they are hypocritical as hell.

That being said, I do some Unreal Engine stuff (learning the engine mostly) so I have to have Epic' stuff installed. Literally the only reason.

Not using anything from EA or Ubisoft since I simply don't play anything from them.