This was once a golden age of PC gaming where you could open Steam (or just launch an executable yourself!), launch a game and the next thing you would see would be the game itself. For many big (and small) releases those days are long gone, replaced by an era of launchers that are annoying at best.
If you want to play a Rockstar game on PC, you need to install the proprietary launcher, which starts before you play the game you clicked to play and then makes it click Another
Do you want to play a Total war Game? You get a launcher. Paradoxical game? A launcher. Blizzard game? Battle.net. Fourteen days? Epic game store. An EA game? Origin. Ubisoft? Hey guess what, you need to start Ubisoft Connect, a launcher. Even Calypso has a launcher.
Note that there are some bright spots here; Bethesda shut down its own launcher earlier this year and just let Steam handle everythingand some launchers have practical advantages, such as Manage Your Mods (Paradox) or jump straight into a saved game (Creative Assembly).
While publishers have clear reasons for dumping these things on us (from DRM to $$$), these launchers are extremely unpopular with gamers, partly because of the connection issues (see Rockstar’s example above), but mainly because they’re just a pain in the ass, a speed bump on the way to where you actually want to go.
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Things have reached a new level of absurdity this week, however, with news that Kerbal space program– yes, the one with the little aliens building rockets – now has its own launcher for the Steam version of the game, touted as “a resource for news and updates on KSP & KSP 2 Early Access”.
Given the game’s profile, the fact that it’s already launching via Steam, and its reputation as a weird little indie sandbox, fan reaction has been understandably negative; People are venting on Steamwhile you are on Reddit of the game Workarounds have already been found to completely disable the launcher.
Publishers, please, we beg you. That sucks. As the best comment in this Steam discussion says, “GAMES ON STEAM DO NOT NEED A LAUNCHER. STEAM IS THE LAUNCHER”.
