830
Launch already!
(media.piefed.world)
Nah, make a stop at the steam refund button on your way there
The only game I preordered in years was the new Bond game and that was before they disclosed they infested it with Denuvo. I refunded that shit before preloaded was even done.
What a bummer, I love bond games. Thankfully plenty of them on good systems like ps2.
I'm a fan of that one on '360. Felt like GoldenEye but with Daniel Craig and cover mechanics.
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I have replaced game binaries with their pirated version for this sole reason
These publishers don't even deserve the relevancy of high pirate rates. Just find an indie game to play.
Wonder if there is one worse then Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
Launch game on steam
It opens EA Origin
It then opens the Mass Effect LE launcher
Now you get to pick which Mass Effect game you want to play.
Even worse on Linux, their stupid EA app breaks all the time. It took me 20 minutes fucking around to finally get it to work yesterday.
Then another 10 minutes setting up graphics settings and your out 1/2 hour of your refundable time. On top of that sometimes you have to make an account so thats another 15-20 minutes. Then there are possible proton problems so you might have to test different protons. I play on laptop and deck so I might not have internet all the time, I have to test if the game can play without internet. Might waste most of your trial period on getting the game to run.
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Battlefield 3 on Steam:
- Steam launches EA App
- EA App launches Battlelog in your web browser, and a background service
- After choosing a mode/server, web browser sends data to EA App
- EA App launches bf3.exe
EA. More like hEll nAah
And the launcher looks like a flash website from 2002
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Frankly, I despise all launchers, Steam included. The only reason it gets a pass is because it's one of the two somewhat reasonable ones, and the only one that makes gaming on Linux simple and convenient.
It's still slow, ugly as hell, and entirely unnecessary. Makes me want to pirate more, but then I'd have to set the games up from scratch.
The only use case for launchers is console gaming. It makes perfect sense on a Deck, Switch or a PS5. But absolutely no sense whatsoever on a desktop PC.
Again - Steam has features that make it tolerable (achievements, screenshot sharing, workshop, etc.), but I'd still prefer to just play my games without anything in the middle.
I think some games on steam you can just launch from the executable file. I rarely have, because my process is usually "open steam.. stare at list of games.. pick one", so steam is already open.
But yeah, at least it adds some value (proton magic, recording and screenshots, the overlay used to be real useful when i only had one monitor...)
Yep, launchers have always been a scam. Your launcher should be your operating system
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I like Steam as a launcher because I can organize my games
for games I know I want to play, pretty sure I've often just launched them directly. I don't remember, as I haven't played much on Steam lately, if it would then launch steam before launching the game.
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and the only one that makes gaming on Linux simple and convenient.
It's not though, there are a handful of game launchers for Linux. Faugus Launcher is a good lightweight one. I believe you can export the game as an icon as well so you don't even need to open the launcher first if you don't want to (haven't personally done this, but pretty due can).
I'll only use Steam for my non-Steam games if I need controller support since Steam Input is pretty awesome.
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I just stopped buying games from studios that do this.
Yep, same. If I buy a game and that's the first thing I'm hit with, it's an immediate refund. They can all go fuck off with their bs launchers.
the steam page warns you of third party launches before you buy the game doesn't it?
so at least if it does happen it shouldn't be a surprise
First thing I look for and any for any game that has one I hit the ignore button.
I wish Steam offered the ability to blanket ignore anything that required a third party launcher.
I wanted to try this "GTAV" game all the kids were talking about. It was on sale, so I spent four days downloading it over my miserable rural DSL connection only to find out that it wouldn't work without rockstar demanding my information.
So I refunded it. Im sure there was a work around but I didn't need to play it that bad.
Fucking Rockstar.
It took me fucking AGES to get Red Dead 2 running on CachyOS because of that bastard launcher.
I was glad to see with Cyberpunk that I could skip login with their launcher. Later when I decided to try RDR2 it didn't let me skip login, so I refunded that shit with 0 minutes played.
Thanks for telling me I'm just gonna pirate that shit now
It takes two. Fucking incredible game. Hasn't give me headaches during startup while playing on Linux. But God dang, why does it have to be paired with origin in windows and why do I have to login to it just run the game? Fucking eh...
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I tried to play GTA 4 through Steam
The launcher kept failing. Old Rockstar accounts, New ones, didn't matter. Refunded. I May pirate it at some point, I'll enjoy the nostalgia of it probably.
Know what works flawlessly? My Xbox 360 DISC.
Modern games are a joke.
Refund time
I've made it a point to avoid games that require the used of a 3rd party launcher.
The last time I tolerated a 3rd party launcher was when I was playing through the mass effect trilogy, as the 3rd game needed EA's launcher, I think.
It was so much of a pain, I just swore them off completely. Now if a game needs a 3rd party launcher, I either just don't play it, or... Yarr, if it's good enough to warrant it.
I bought ME:LE and I still refuse to play it uncracked. The EA app bullshit has caused me more than enough grief, actively preventing me from playing the game I paid for unless it's cracked.
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- Diablo II: had a -skiptobnet command line option.
- Diablo II Resurrected: Load Battle.Net first, click through ads for other stuff, click again to start the game, press buttons to skip the animations, and press another key to really log in, for real this time.
So I just made a button that launches a script that does all those clicks for me while I retrieve a beverage. The only reason I didn't just pirate was so I could play online with an old friend.
The only launchers i can bear are Steam (because it is useful after all, it has proton, the workshop, etc etc) and launchers for Minecraft
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I just bought Far Cry 3 on steam, because it was on sale, but launching it requires me to sign into the uplay launcher. I now had multiple occurrences of the game not starting, because uplay couldn’t verify that I own the game. I then decided to open Far Cry from the uplay launcher directly which still opened steam. I guess jokes on me for not pirating the game.
I particularly appreciate the fact that it's EAs launcher in the meme, undoubtedly one of if not the worst offender for this shit.
Negative review. Every time. No matter how good the game.
I also don't buy them any more but I have a load in my library.
It’s annoying, I hate it. They’re useless bloat.
But it’s never risen to the level of “I literally will not buy/play the game over this.”
I don’t get people who say this at all. You buy this cool game you love, you’ll spend hours playing it, but you won’t enter a fake email and wait another 30 seconds at launch to play it?
Even at the peak of Origin’s woes, I never got close to that.
It's yet another program you didn't choose collecting whatever data from your computer, and yet another - very intentional - obstacle to the gaming experience. Honestly, it's less about time and more about artificial obstructions and privacy invasion everywhere.
It is particularly egregious when studios who normally side with the gamers, like CDPR, do the same thing with their games.
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That's actually good, you wasted no time from your 2 hour refund period and can pirate it then.
My gaming PC is connected to the TV screen and I use it like a console - which means I mostly use a gamepad. Until one of these fuckers show up, and I need to get off my lazy ass and go grab the keyboard...
Leased*
I feel this on a molecular level
Haven't bought a Ubisoft game for more than a decade because all of their new stuff requires Uplay.
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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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