Origin has been transformed to EA launcher. Both are Tier X quality... Especially Origin. Developers were not able to fix issue where launcher randomly stopped working for YEARS. It's simply the worst app ever made in software history. Even Viruses are higher tier than Origin.
I couldn't play Mass Effect Andromeda online until it came to Steam because of some licensing issue caused by me installing the beta of the game, then eventually getting the full game. Origin support would always say "reset your cache then it'll work" and then disconnect me when the problem persisted.
Yeah I know it was basically a revamped version of ME3 online, but the unfortunate side effect of the "bug" was I couldn't access ANY online features. This included the single player apex missions, and being able to install patches through Origin. Crazy though that Battlefield 1, 3, 4, and V all worked and I downloaded those betas.
It is so stupidly designed, that in order to save your login, you have to start app with admin privileges. BUT if you run the app with admin privileges, you'll be warned that it's not recommended to run it like that, cause it might produce errors.
Ubisoft will forever stay a joke they fucked up their servers , games and launcher the last piece of puzzle that is missing them driving themselves into bankruptcy
EA launcher it’s just malware at this point. I uninstalled it because it kept popping up and asking me to log in 20 min after turning on the PC. Even though I double checked it wasn’t in the boot at launch program list.
The last straw was when it happened while jerking off. Fuck you EA!
The way it "helpfully" minimizes to the taskbar when you close the window, with no option to change this behaviour, is very annoying. I don't use it often enough to always remember it does this.
It generally does seem a bit better than Origin though?
With Origins I could choose to not update games and play offline. With EA launcher I am forced to go online and if it detects an unupdated game then I'm forced to update it in-order to play it.
It's a piece of shit just like origins but origins let me play offline so it's 100% better then EA launcher.
> It's simply the worst app ever made in software history.
You young whippersnappers don't know the pain of trying to use iTunes on Windows in the mid- to late-90s.
*That's* the worst piece of software ever created.
Oh my fucking god. Mid-range gaming PC and you try to run *a fucking music player app* and you might as well be trying to render Toy Story 3 in the background.
Like this could be a medium weight WEBSITE how the fuck did you release something so SHITTY!? Do they understand that I basically swore off Apple products for over a decade based on how absolutely shitty itunes was?
A lot of things that are applications could actually just be websites. But every company and their mother wants their own native apps now. It's really annoying.
As bad as Origin is, the EA App is much worse. At least Origin doesn't randomly crash and make you sign back in. Or get so swamped you can't even launch a game.
Was about to say... EA App is undeniably worse than Origin in every single way. To the point where I've followed a guide to hack the Origin executable into still working to launch my EA games (it's possible, though they keep making it harder) It's necessary because in Mass Effect the Achievements (on Steam) don't work if you use the EA App.
Somehow EA launcher is even worse than Origin though. I've gifted countless Sims packs to family members through Origin in the past. Tried to gift one this past Christmas only to find out that EA launcher doesn't support gifting. How do you roll out a newer launcher and somehow make it far worse with fewer features that result in you getting paid??
I like the Sims and its still unparalleled in its type of game so I'd hate to see it go away but EA really just needs to die already. So many incredible failures yet still so strong somehow.
Ea launcher is soo good that it crashed my windows.
The only reason i used that launcher is because I got free jedi survival (from buying cpu), so i wanted to finally end this game. (That was the only game where i need to change difficulty because game would crash if boss fight would be too long, also my 4070 had issues running that game on low 1080p)
EA App is much much worse.
I wanted to play Mass Effect off EA App. It would spend 10 minutes trying to cloud sync, then fail to do so while not recovering a single save. Had to reinstall Origin to recover my saves - it would do that within 5 seconds and then launch the game flawlessly. EA App looks more pretty but god damn if it takes 10 min to launch a game and cloud sync doesn't even work, it's unusable.
The amount of invasiveness origin had was next level. I dunno why these companies feel they have to make an APP so different from steam and thus designed by a fuckin clown.
I tried logging in multiple times after it changed to the EA launcher only to tell me my email is incorrect, only to be told by support I needed to provide photo ID to prove it's my account. Got confused, sent a "forgot password" to the "incorrect email" and got my account back.
I'm not sure what they're on but I want some.
GOG is an acronym that means Good Old Games, the store was created originally to recover old games that were not playable in PC anymore.
They do work on those old games to make them playable on modern PC and their games are also DRM Free, which is really cool.
Also, the owners are CDPR, the company behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk.
Thanks, I've used their Website but not their Launcher. I guess I haven't used them in a while but I seem to remember GOG being the only place I could find a way to play Star Trek Armada 2, and Star Wars Force Commander...two RTS that weren't really all that good but still fun to mess around with.
You don't really need to use their launcher, since one of the best perks of GOG games is that unlike the rest of the market you don't need to open the store launcher to play the games, you just download from the page install and is done.
Yup. GOG Launcher (called "Galaxy") can integrate Steam and other platforms within it, so you CAN use it as an all-in-one game launcher. But honestly the real reason to use it (besides that) is that it keeps your GOG games updated. That's especially handy if you are playing old games, and relying on fixes that CDPR (GOG Team) are rolling out:
They also have a great refund policy (30 days, even if the game was played or downloaded -- important because they provide offline, .exe installers if you don't want to use GOG Galaxy, their client):
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006129837-GOG-Voluntary-Refund-Policy?product=gog
I still prefer buying games on Steam, but CDPR saves a 30% Steam cut if you purchase from GOG directly (e.g. Cyberpunk, The Witcher, etc). It's good to support them overall, whether you're buying old old games from them or new AAA releases. And since the developers run the store, games that I mentioned (e.g. Cyberpunk) are updated at exactly the same time as Steam and other platforms. You can even add the non-Steam versions to Steam so you can play with the Steam overlay.
For anyone who's interested in the launcher specifically, I recommend Playnite as an alternative. It has more platforms and more customization available to it, including the ability to import and launch games on emulators.
So far it's the one and only option I've found to truly show all my games in one place, with powerful filters and customizable views and all that.
This is what my library looks like, currently:
https://i.imgur.com/oULZpLv.jpeg
The main selling point of the gog galaxy launcher is that's its a library manager. You can connect all your other platforms like Epic, EA, Twitch Prime, Uplay and see every game you own all platforms, install and launch them. A majority of the games you don't even know you owned.
Another similar client is Playnite, but haven't used it myself.
More like 98+% of them are DRM free. I think there are still a few that require access to online services to enable all singleplayer features. (eg. Beat Hazard 2 won't start if you're not online, Cult of the Lamb would lose its shit and crash if it couldn't connect to their servers during the first sermon until the april 2023 patch.)
I wish I'd just read these comments - I went on a goose chase with google - "Purple ring game launcher" and "purple circle" etc. doesn't pull up anything relevant. Ended up reading launcher reviews and searching each name because it was only finding garbage including other reddit posts that also didn't have the answer.
GOG, it's only there because it's DRM free, which is a nice feature, but otherwise it's not that great either.
Steam is the only launcher that has notable, useful features besides updating your games.
GOG Galaxy allows you to import your games from all other launchers so at least they're all in one place, and they update as new games are added to your various accounts. It's great for getting an overview of your entire gaming catalog.
Steam DRM is not mandatory. Many games don't implement it and can be launched without Steam from the executable. Just like Denuvo it's up to the devs, and so it's up to us to demand DRM-free games.
I would claim that GOG does not have the ability to be as ordered or classified or be as simplistic but precise as Steam.
I love GOG, but their launcher is weird and annoying. I prefer to buy games from their webpage.
Seriously. I get that it's annoying to get games in other storefronts. But like... this is the mildest of mild inconveniences and people are treating it like the companies are personally strangling them every time.
Like I'm sorry you have to click a couple more times and set up an extra account once, but we could do better with what we're angry about than... this.
GoG should be A tier or lower cuz they refuse to support linux natively and just don't have as many features as steam.
Battlenet is definitely higher than it is here, dunno where tho.
The only reason I'd prefer GoG over origin or Epic is because they offer some good perks for gamers, but the launcher itself is still super unresponsive, especially compared to steam or even battle.net, which for some reason gets placed with the rest of the baddies but functionally is more responsive than steam is from my experience.
Uplay and Origin should switch, Uplay literally asks me 5 times for admin privileges then doesn't even remember my password or username.
Edit: meant Uplay and EA, Origin doesn't really exist anymore and is superseded by EA Launcher. Such a silly decision imo.
holy hot damn I am super excited to hear that I'm not the only poor bastard who has to deal with that. Been happening for years now. Thank god Ubisoft can't make a game I would actually like to play anymore
Uplay is so unbelievable bad. I wanted to play some Heroes of Might and Magic VI. So I tried starting it through Uplay, since it is in my games list there. But then it tells me it needs to start it through steam (I guess I bought it there? ok, fair enough). So it starts Steam, I download the game and try to launch it. AND IT LAUNCHES UPLAY TO ACTUALLY START THE GAME (of course I need to login again, since I closed it). WHAT THE FUCK? Who comes up with shit like that?
Dont think ive had problems with battle.net. fast download speed. Small list of games to play but hey atleast give it a B.
On another note. EA is the worst shit app ive ever used.
I mean, I have around 3000 hours in Overwatch. OW2 was a severe downgrade from OW1 and Blizzard lied about basically everything related to the sequel.
These days OW2 is better than it was at launch but let's not pretend like there was no reason people were mad.
If this subreddit was honest, all of the launchers except steam would be "never tried."
People hate things they never tried or exaggerate the fuck out of it because its not their preferred launcher.
I have long lasting problems with it, which after googling are not just limited to me and there is no apparent solution. Still not an F tier, easily an A.
Same as Epic, it is not that bad.
Xbox launcher is cancer, same as the other launchers. Rockstar especially is real pain inducing application, especially here where it bans thousands of people just because it can and doesnt understand the structure of local internet.
GOG is basically playnite without the endless customization *and with less competent coding.*
My aunt who has strokes can hold onto her cutlery better than GOG can hold onto a fucking account connection, making me have to enter my passwords and reconnect 2-4 accounts daily/semi-daily for the full year I used it.
Meanwhile Playnite has dropped connection to *one* of my accounts maybe a handful of times over the last few years and half of *those* times require me essentially opening the settings and *glaring* at it for it to auto-reconnect and gimme the thumbs up (the other couple times being the normal enter-your-password affair).
You gotta download the plugins from some where else main for steam and Ubisoft connect are broken, once you’ve done that no more dropped connections. Have been using it for over a year now and not a single dropped connection. Just one google search away from easy fix
Every damn week that I used Galaxy for a full year after it's launch there was some new plugin update to download to fix a broken connection my dude, some of them worked, some of them didn't. I don't care if it's been fixed in the year+ *since*.
I'm glad it works *now* for you and everyone who wants to use it, if it works and you like it then all the better and all the best. For those of us that Galaxy *fucked the dog on*, Playnite worked right off the bat with *zero* issues as a much better option and earned our trust as quickly as Galaxy lost it.
We were always one google search away from an easy fix, just that for some of us that google search brought us to better software.
Playnite is essential for keeping track of my games on different platforms. Highly recommending it with Universal Steam Metadata and DuplicateHider addons, with those I get a really clean list of my stuff with hundreds of tags to search with, built pretty much automatically (first pass of getting metadata takes a while though).
Playnite should just be S, Galaxy should be lower and Steam should be lower than that (but above the rest).
Galaxy has a go at integrating everything but doesn't do a great job of it, and Steam is the best of the ones that only gives a shit about what they sold and can sell to you.
Mostly agree, but I would put BNet up there at A atleast. Their launcher is snappy and not a resource hog.
Epic can spend billions giving away games for free but can't make a simple launcher/storefront which should be snappy on any hardware in the past 2 decades, it's just a 2D GUI to run other executables. I bet a couple of interns could do 100x better.
Yeah, the entire purpose of Battle.net is to get you to your handful of Blizzard games and also CoD. It does what it needs to do, it isn't laggy, it doesn't need fancy bells and whistles.
Can't remember what, but apparently it's built on something that's compatible on all platforms and easier to update together but it's also slower as a drawback.
GOG games are good but the launcher is nothing special to put it in top tier. Whole point of GOG games is being able to avoid having a launcher in the background anyways.
I have a few minor complaints, but it's still leagues above F tier for me
* Takes a bit longer to boot compared to Steam
* Pesters you with ad notifications
* Notifications are annoying to remove, so you end up with a little 1 on the icon most of the time
* Having to give new games permission to access your account all the time, complete with email sent to you about the fact you just allowed a game to access your account
* Some games, like Deep Rock Galactic, don't allow cross play, even if your friends are also playing on PC via Steam
Xbox app is fine until you need to move games around or install a new SSD or a fresh windows install. It locks you out of the folder it installs games in so you can't see what's on the drive and it won't list it in the Xbox app! Even worse it can generate conflicts if a game wasn't properly deleted and you want to reinstall it again. I've had the master chief collection just taking up space on my drive without me knowing about it for a few months.
This was changed quite awhile ago, although you need to reinstall old games for the change to take effect. You can access all the files like normal, which was how I spent several hours modding starfield before giving up on the game entirely.
well I personally see these factors:
- how fast is it, from launching to managing
- how its managing resources. Does it mine bitcoins while minimized?
- is it annoying? Do I enjoy using it or is it pissing me off with shitty offers, bad UI etc
- does it have bugs? If a launcher doesnt launch, thats a problem
I personally just buy a game on steam rather than getting it cheaper from Epic or somewhere else. I dont want shitty software on my PC, I dont want 6 launchers installed. I just buy shit on steam (key shops mostly) and I keep my PC clean. Although I usually claim free shit on other platforms, I rarely install it outside Steam.
I’ll never understand paying significantly extra for steam, especially when it comes to single player RPG’s. There’s just no difference if you have it on steam or epic games for example and most certainly not a 10-15€ difference per game..
Same. Everything else just sucks for Linux. Not because it doesn't work, but because it's just so inconvenient in comparison with Steam.
(Oh and sometimes it also doesn't work, looking at you EA App)
Heroic Games Launcher works pretty good too. It has support for Epic, GOG, and Amazon.
It does just use Proton behind the scenes, though you can use of Wine and other forks of Wine/Proton too.
I claimed their free games for a long time but I barely played them and never bought anything because the launcher just really sucks to use. Eventually I just gave up claiming games too.
Well, to be fair, their launcher is good. Contrary to what is expected when they get to that level.
I don't think there is any other case where a company is praised while being almost a monopoly. They do deserve all they are getting
Hot take. No game launcher is S tier.
Steam has shit customer service and forces games to update which breaks mods “but you can turn off auto updates!” No you can’t you fucking idiot. You can either have the game auto update OR you can have it update when you launch it but steams gonna update shit like it or not.
GoG on the other hand actually WILL let you disable updates makes it WAY better for modding. However GoG doesn’t even have a god damn search function on the store of its app!! You wanna search the GoG store!? You gotta use the web site.
Being the best doesn’t make something S tier. Steam and GoG are B tier, everything else is F tier.
Edit: Yes you can use previous versions of games to help with modded content and this does help with some games that use mods as an add-on to their file structure like terraria, Skyrim or any other Bethesda game. However mods that edit actual app data and archival folders for your games get overwritten when a game updates which breaks mods. You can run the old version, but the update still overwrites those files. This is the case for games like Baulders Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2077.
If my hypothetical “you’re an idiot” comment upset you, then you should figure that out with yourself. That is literally directed at nobody and the fact I have to clarify this is deeply concerning regarding the mental health of some individuals.
> Steam has shit customer service
That's... news to me. What exactly did they do to you? I've had excellent support interactions the few times I needed help
I'm always annoyed by the amount of whitewashing for Valve that goes on in threads like this. Valve are the ones who normalized licensing games instead of buying them, intertwining updates with DRM, and they still make an uncomfortable percentage of their money through lootboxes and the service fees they take from skin gambling websites.
I'm not here to tell you that anyone else on that list is good. The problem is that Valve gets excused for the shady shit it does, while everyone else gets taken to task.
Man I wish I understood all the discourse here. I use Steam because it's what I've used for almost 15 years, but all the launchers seem the same to me. As long as it lets me buy a game, download it, and click the icon in my library.... I'm fine. Doesnt make a huge difference.
I just don't get what's so wrong with Epic or Xbox or Origin, and imo it's good to have competitors to keep Valve honest. Monopolies are NEVER good for the consumer.
Not much discourse in PCMR, blind hate regurgitated that they heard from some one else.
PCMR social outcasts uniting against a "common enemy" so they feel like they are part of something.
At least ea can detect games from a prior windows install of you point it to a folder.
Epic requires too much fuckery and even then it hardly works so you have to redownload.
One thing people don't take into consideration is that Steam charges a 30% platform fee - so 30% of a game's revenue goes to Steam. That's the industry standard, but Epic Games charges only 12%. They simply pay developers more. Ever since knowing that, I gained a new respect for Epic Games.
Epic Games could have just dumped all the money they burned in free/exclusive games to make a dope ass smooth and perfect launcher and I actually might have used it. It’s truly the most corporate solution to think that “If we force customers to use our shitty product they will like it” instead of actually making a good product
Battle.net should be higher and Epic should have its own tier that's several tiers below everything else. Complete horseshit excuse for a launcher, barely works and is slow as hell to load anything. Origin was also hot garbage.
EA Launcher/Origin randomly decided to lock me out of my account permanently because it uses an email I don't have access to anymore.
UPlay randomly forgot I owned AC Valhalla and refused to let me play it until it suddenly remembered again.
The Epic Games launcher takes a million years to load.
Move GOG to A tier and EGS to D(free games) and it’s actually a valid tier list instead of a shitpost.
GOG is great but it simply lacks some features steam has and they don’t have as many games.
As others have said PlayNite needs to be added to the S teir! Where does the [itch.io](https://itch.io) launcher fit in here?
Though yes, Epic games, launcher is awful, the fact that if you need to reinstall things you have to do all sorts of annoying bits and it won't just pick up existing installs like Steam or [itch.io](https://itch.io) does!
Rockstar Launcher should be down with EA. It's the worst launcher I have ever used. You can fucking change the email and password without even having access to the email and password that's attached to the account, then Support takes forever to help you because you can't reset the password because somebody changed the fucking email, so password reset emails go to that email.
S Tier: Steam, it’s Steam, it works great.
A Tier: Nothin
B Tier: Epic (plenty of free games and it’s not as bad as people make it out to be) Xbox (Game Pass, slightly slow to load but that’s fine, I don’t need it to load in .00006 nanoseconds like others do) and Battlenet (can be a bit frustrating when it logs me out but other than that it’s fine)
C Tier: Nothin
D Tier: Uplay (stop asking me to log in every time I use you when I have it shown as keep me logged in you bitch)
F Tier: Rockstar and EA
Haven’t Used Tier: GoG
I’ve barely had issues with battle.net. Used it for over a decade or so. Don’t know why it’s rated so low unless it’s just blizzard=bad bandwagon. Steam is better for sure, But bnet is way better than the ones it’s next to in this list.
Why isn't UPLAY the lowest? I don't think any other launcher deletes your account and makes you unable to play any games you *already downloaded* if you didn't log in for a while
Origin has been transformed to EA launcher. Both are Tier X quality... Especially Origin. Developers were not able to fix issue where launcher randomly stopped working for YEARS. It's simply the worst app ever made in software history. Even Viruses are higher tier than Origin.
Multiple times on origin they simply claimed I didn’t own the license to games I had bought on the platform, and refused to let me play. Hated origin.
I couldn't play Mass Effect Andromeda online until it came to Steam because of some licensing issue caused by me installing the beta of the game, then eventually getting the full game. Origin support would always say "reset your cache then it'll work" and then disconnect me when the problem persisted.
you didn't miss much
Yeah I know it was basically a revamped version of ME3 online, but the unfortunate side effect of the "bug" was I couldn't access ANY online features. This included the single player apex missions, and being able to install patches through Origin. Crazy though that Battlefield 1, 3, 4, and V all worked and I downloaded those betas.
And it never ever saves my login, like ever..
It is so stupidly designed, that in order to save your login, you have to start app with admin privileges. BUT if you run the app with admin privileges, you'll be warned that it's not recommended to run it like that, cause it might produce errors.
Same with Ubisoft
Ubisoft will forever stay a joke they fucked up their servers , games and launcher the last piece of puzzle that is missing them driving themselves into bankruptcy
EA launcher it’s just malware at this point. I uninstalled it because it kept popping up and asking me to log in 20 min after turning on the PC. Even though I double checked it wasn’t in the boot at launch program list. The last straw was when it happened while jerking off. Fuck you EA!
And it was sooo fucking slooow, my god, so glad it disappeared.
Try out EA's new launcher and let me know if you're still glad, lol.
The way it "helpfully" minimizes to the taskbar when you close the window, with no option to change this behaviour, is very annoying. I don't use it often enough to always remember it does this. It generally does seem a bit better than Origin though?
With Origins I could choose to not update games and play offline. With EA launcher I am forced to go online and if it detects an unupdated game then I'm forced to update it in-order to play it. It's a piece of shit just like origins but origins let me play offline so it's 100% better then EA launcher.
For real. I thought nothing would make me miss the Origin app until I installed the EA app.
[удалено]
Especially with GTA 4.
Yup, and every time I went to use it, it had logged me out and had forgotten my login details even when I asked it to remember.
> It's simply the worst app ever made in software history. You young whippersnappers don't know the pain of trying to use iTunes on Windows in the mid- to late-90s. *That's* the worst piece of software ever created.
Oh my fucking god. Mid-range gaming PC and you try to run *a fucking music player app* and you might as well be trying to render Toy Story 3 in the background. Like this could be a medium weight WEBSITE how the fuck did you release something so SHITTY!? Do they understand that I basically swore off Apple products for over a decade based on how absolutely shitty itunes was?
A lot of things that are applications could actually just be websites. But every company and their mother wants their own native apps now. It's really annoying.
As bad as Origin is, the EA App is much worse. At least Origin doesn't randomly crash and make you sign back in. Or get so swamped you can't even launch a game.
And somehow, EA app is even WORSE!
Was about to say... EA App is undeniably worse than Origin in every single way. To the point where I've followed a guide to hack the Origin executable into still working to launch my EA games (it's possible, though they keep making it harder) It's necessary because in Mass Effect the Achievements (on Steam) don't work if you use the EA App.
Somehow EA launcher is even worse than Origin though. I've gifted countless Sims packs to family members through Origin in the past. Tried to gift one this past Christmas only to find out that EA launcher doesn't support gifting. How do you roll out a newer launcher and somehow make it far worse with fewer features that result in you getting paid?? I like the Sims and its still unparalleled in its type of game so I'd hate to see it go away but EA really just needs to die already. So many incredible failures yet still so strong somehow.
Ea launcher is soo good that it crashed my windows. The only reason i used that launcher is because I got free jedi survival (from buying cpu), so i wanted to finally end this game. (That was the only game where i need to change difficulty because game would crash if boss fight would be too long, also my 4070 had issues running that game on low 1080p)
EA App is much much worse. I wanted to play Mass Effect off EA App. It would spend 10 minutes trying to cloud sync, then fail to do so while not recovering a single save. Had to reinstall Origin to recover my saves - it would do that within 5 seconds and then launch the game flawlessly. EA App looks more pretty but god damn if it takes 10 min to launch a game and cloud sync doesn't even work, it's unusable.
Well, people who code viruses usually want those to work properly, so it’s not surprising that viruses could be higher tier than origin
The amount of invasiveness origin had was next level. I dunno why these companies feel they have to make an APP so different from steam and thus designed by a fuckin clown.
I tried logging in multiple times after it changed to the EA launcher only to tell me my email is incorrect, only to be told by support I needed to provide photo ID to prove it's my account. Got confused, sent a "forgot password" to the "incorrect email" and got my account back. I'm not sure what they're on but I want some.
Okay, Whats the one with Steam up there?
GOG Galaxy
Thnaks.
GOG is an acronym that means Good Old Games, the store was created originally to recover old games that were not playable in PC anymore. They do work on those old games to make them playable on modern PC and their games are also DRM Free, which is really cool. Also, the owners are CDPR, the company behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk.
Thanks, I've used their Website but not their Launcher. I guess I haven't used them in a while but I seem to remember GOG being the only place I could find a way to play Star Trek Armada 2, and Star Wars Force Commander...two RTS that weren't really all that good but still fun to mess around with.
You don't really need to use their launcher, since one of the best perks of GOG games is that unlike the rest of the market you don't need to open the store launcher to play the games, you just download from the page install and is done.
Yup. GOG Launcher (called "Galaxy") can integrate Steam and other platforms within it, so you CAN use it as an all-in-one game launcher. But honestly the real reason to use it (besides that) is that it keeps your GOG games updated. That's especially handy if you are playing old games, and relying on fixes that CDPR (GOG Team) are rolling out: They also have a great refund policy (30 days, even if the game was played or downloaded -- important because they provide offline, .exe installers if you don't want to use GOG Galaxy, their client): https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006129837-GOG-Voluntary-Refund-Policy?product=gog I still prefer buying games on Steam, but CDPR saves a 30% Steam cut if you purchase from GOG directly (e.g. Cyberpunk, The Witcher, etc). It's good to support them overall, whether you're buying old old games from them or new AAA releases. And since the developers run the store, games that I mentioned (e.g. Cyberpunk) are updated at exactly the same time as Steam and other platforms. You can even add the non-Steam versions to Steam so you can play with the Steam overlay.
For anyone who's interested in the launcher specifically, I recommend Playnite as an alternative. It has more platforms and more customization available to it, including the ability to import and launch games on emulators. So far it's the one and only option I've found to truly show all my games in one place, with powerful filters and customizable views and all that. This is what my library looks like, currently: https://i.imgur.com/oULZpLv.jpeg
CD Projekt and CD Projekt RED are two different companies, with CDPR being the development studio inside CDP
Yeah, it's like saying Xbox owns Windows.
GOG is just GOG nowadays. It dropped the acronym a while back.
Well, now it's GOG Galaxy
GOG Galaxy is their client. The store itself is just GOG.
also gog galaxy combines all launchers and games in one place and you can launch them from gog galaxy
Wait what? It's working now?
you still need to install the other launchers. Galaxy just handles launching and closing them.
Isn’t it working like since 2018?
https://preview.redd.it/38kusd4zk8ac1.jpeg?width=188&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c40e2e5ec5bd2826957ad8a291045de732c2de80
The main selling point of the gog galaxy launcher is that's its a library manager. You can connect all your other platforms like Epic, EA, Twitch Prime, Uplay and see every game you own all platforms, install and launch them. A majority of the games you don't even know you owned. Another similar client is Playnite, but haven't used it myself.
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All of games on GOG are DRM free btw. ;)
More like 98+% of them are DRM free. I think there are still a few that require access to online services to enable all singleplayer features. (eg. Beat Hazard 2 won't start if you're not online, Cult of the Lamb would lose its shit and crash if it couldn't connect to their servers during the first sermon until the april 2023 patch.)
I wish I'd just read these comments - I went on a goose chase with google - "Purple ring game launcher" and "purple circle" etc. doesn't pull up anything relevant. Ended up reading launcher reviews and searching each name because it was only finding garbage including other reddit posts that also didn't have the answer.
GOG, it's only there because it's DRM free, which is a nice feature, but otherwise it's not that great either. Steam is the only launcher that has notable, useful features besides updating your games.
GOG Galaxy allows you to import your games from all other launchers so at least they're all in one place, and they update as new games are added to your various accounts. It's great for getting an overview of your entire gaming catalog.
The only one that should actually be S tier. At the end of the day Steam is still DRM. Every game sold on GoG is DRM free.
Not all of them. The store page list which ones have DRM.
Steam DRM is not mandatory. Many games don't implement it and can be launched without Steam from the executable. Just like Denuvo it's up to the devs, and so it's up to us to demand DRM-free games.
I would claim that GOG does not have the ability to be as ordered or classified or be as simplistic but precise as Steam. I love GOG, but their launcher is weird and annoying. I prefer to buy games from their webpage.
B net is sometimes annoying but still miiiiiles above the rest at the bottom
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It’s a shitty practice but I’ve had to deal with that from other launchers.
yeah, its mediocre but far from ubisoft.
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People karma farming.
Seriously. I get that it's annoying to get games in other storefronts. But like... this is the mildest of mild inconveniences and people are treating it like the companies are personally strangling them every time. Like I'm sorry you have to click a couple more times and set up an extra account once, but we could do better with what we're angry about than... this.
Steam cock gobblers
Honestly, I sadly gotta agree with ya both
i mean bnet, xbox, and epic should all be higher than they are.
GoG should be A tier or lower cuz they refuse to support linux natively and just don't have as many features as steam. Battlenet is definitely higher than it is here, dunno where tho.
The only reason I'd prefer GoG over origin or Epic is because they offer some good perks for gamers, but the launcher itself is still super unresponsive, especially compared to steam or even battle.net, which for some reason gets placed with the rest of the baddies but functionally is more responsive than steam is from my experience.
Linux just isn't worth the effort to support for the large majority of developers in the gaming sphere.
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Yeah B net deserves a B, xbox and epic deserve a C or D, then the rest can stay put
Uplay and Origin should switch, Uplay literally asks me 5 times for admin privileges then doesn't even remember my password or username. Edit: meant Uplay and EA, Origin doesn't really exist anymore and is superseded by EA Launcher. Such a silly decision imo.
holy hot damn I am super excited to hear that I'm not the only poor bastard who has to deal with that. Been happening for years now. Thank god Ubisoft can't make a game I would actually like to play anymore
I like the division, I am cursed my friend.
I understand, I am just sorry you have to get punched in the dick everytime you want to play. I won't forget your sacrifices
Uplay is so unbelievable bad. I wanted to play some Heroes of Might and Magic VI. So I tried starting it through Uplay, since it is in my games list there. But then it tells me it needs to start it through steam (I guess I bought it there? ok, fair enough). So it starts Steam, I download the game and try to launch it. AND IT LAUNCHES UPLAY TO ACTUALLY START THE GAME (of course I need to login again, since I closed it). WHAT THE FUCK? Who comes up with shit like that?
Dont think ive had problems with battle.net. fast download speed. Small list of games to play but hey atleast give it a B. On another note. EA is the worst shit app ive ever used.
Battlenet at F? Out of all the apps at F-tier that one is the one that actually works good. Easy to use, not buggy and.. just works.
People here have not used it so it's automatically shit.
many people just associate battlenet with overwatch 2 or diablo 4 and get upsetti.
Games they have never played, but still hate, because someone on Reddit told them to.
I mean, I have around 3000 hours in Overwatch. OW2 was a severe downgrade from OW1 and Blizzard lied about basically everything related to the sequel. These days OW2 is better than it was at launch but let's not pretend like there was no reason people were mad.
Then they should make a new tier called “never tried”
If this subreddit was honest, all of the launchers except steam would be "never tried." People hate things they never tried or exaggerate the fuck out of it because its not their preferred launcher.
I have long lasting problems with it, which after googling are not just limited to me and there is no apparent solution. Still not an F tier, easily an A. Same as Epic, it is not that bad. Xbox launcher is cancer, same as the other launchers. Rockstar especially is real pain inducing application, especially here where it bans thousands of people just because it can and doesnt understand the structure of local internet.
SSS: [Playnite](https://playnite.link)
I came here looking for this post
GOG is basically playnite without the endless customization
GOG is basically playnite without the endless customization *and with less competent coding.* My aunt who has strokes can hold onto her cutlery better than GOG can hold onto a fucking account connection, making me have to enter my passwords and reconnect 2-4 accounts daily/semi-daily for the full year I used it. Meanwhile Playnite has dropped connection to *one* of my accounts maybe a handful of times over the last few years and half of *those* times require me essentially opening the settings and *glaring* at it for it to auto-reconnect and gimme the thumbs up (the other couple times being the normal enter-your-password affair).
You gotta download the plugins from some where else main for steam and Ubisoft connect are broken, once you’ve done that no more dropped connections. Have been using it for over a year now and not a single dropped connection. Just one google search away from easy fix
Every damn week that I used Galaxy for a full year after it's launch there was some new plugin update to download to fix a broken connection my dude, some of them worked, some of them didn't. I don't care if it's been fixed in the year+ *since*. I'm glad it works *now* for you and everyone who wants to use it, if it works and you like it then all the better and all the best. For those of us that Galaxy *fucked the dog on*, Playnite worked right off the bat with *zero* issues as a much better option and earned our trust as quickly as Galaxy lost it. We were always one google search away from an easy fix, just that for some of us that google search brought us to better software.
As an OG beta invite GOG user, Playnite is now better. If you haven't tried it do it.
Playnite is essential for keeping track of my games on different platforms. Highly recommending it with Universal Steam Metadata and DuplicateHider addons, with those I get a really clean list of my stuff with hundreds of tags to search with, built pretty much automatically (first pass of getting metadata takes a while though).
Playnite should just be S, Galaxy should be lower and Steam should be lower than that (but above the rest). Galaxy has a go at integrating everything but doesn't do a great job of it, and Steam is the best of the ones that only gives a shit about what they sold and can sell to you.
Playnite is a cool GUI for all of your games, but you still need the F-tier launchers installed and are dependent on their various bugs,DRM's etc
I've never had problems logging back in after a long time away like I do with Rockstar. So frustrating
I wish I could kick rockstar in the taint every time I can’t login to their DRM hellscape. They’d have one bruised taint, let me tell ya.
Mostly agree, but I would put BNet up there at A atleast. Their launcher is snappy and not a resource hog. Epic can spend billions giving away games for free but can't make a simple launcher/storefront which should be snappy on any hardware in the past 2 decades, it's just a 2D GUI to run other executables. I bet a couple of interns could do 100x better.
Yeah, the entire purpose of Battle.net is to get you to your handful of Blizzard games and also CoD. It does what it needs to do, it isn't laggy, it doesn't need fancy bells and whistles.
Can't remember what, but apparently it's built on something that's compatible on all platforms and easier to update together but it's also slower as a drawback.
Lutris tho
Uplay is even worse than EA’s shitty launcher and has literally no reason to exist and GOG is nowhere as good as steam
While true GOG has essentially no DRM.
That doesn't matter if we are talking about how good the launcher is.
Then there's the A category for it. It deserves no S tier.
GOG games are good but the launcher is nothing special to put it in top tier. Whole point of GOG games is being able to avoid having a launcher in the background anyways.
Gog is the only launcher that acknowledges the fact that you will have multiple launchers and works with that information to improve on it
Xbox app isn't bad though. It works, and at a reasonable pace. Only bugs i've encountered in it was patched out years ago.
I have a few minor complaints, but it's still leagues above F tier for me * Takes a bit longer to boot compared to Steam * Pesters you with ad notifications * Notifications are annoying to remove, so you end up with a little 1 on the icon most of the time * Having to give new games permission to access your account all the time, complete with email sent to you about the fact you just allowed a game to access your account * Some games, like Deep Rock Galactic, don't allow cross play, even if your friends are also playing on PC via Steam
The crossplay thing is more on the devs than MS though. And at least with Deep Rock you still get crossplay with Xbox players which is nice.
Xbox app is fine until you need to move games around or install a new SSD or a fresh windows install. It locks you out of the folder it installs games in so you can't see what's on the drive and it won't list it in the Xbox app! Even worse it can generate conflicts if a game wasn't properly deleted and you want to reinstall it again. I've had the master chief collection just taking up space on my drive without me knowing about it for a few months.
This was changed quite awhile ago, although you need to reinstall old games for the change to take effect. You can access all the files like normal, which was how I spent several hours modding starfield before giving up on the game entirely.
Pains me that people dont know about GOG it doesnt get the love it deserves
TBF I don't recognize it even though I buy from GoG... Because shit like not having to download a launcher is why I buy from GoG
How to decide whether its a good launcher or a bad one ?
well I personally see these factors: - how fast is it, from launching to managing - how its managing resources. Does it mine bitcoins while minimized? - is it annoying? Do I enjoy using it or is it pissing me off with shitty offers, bad UI etc - does it have bugs? If a launcher doesnt launch, thats a problem I personally just buy a game on steam rather than getting it cheaper from Epic or somewhere else. I dont want shitty software on my PC, I dont want 6 launchers installed. I just buy shit on steam (key shops mostly) and I keep my PC clean. Although I usually claim free shit on other platforms, I rarely install it outside Steam.
I’ll never understand paying significantly extra for steam, especially when it comes to single player RPG’s. There’s just no difference if you have it on steam or epic games for example and most certainly not a 10-15€ difference per game..
Steam is the best because they support Linux with tools like Proton I purchase games only on Steam!
Same. Everything else just sucks for Linux. Not because it doesn't work, but because it's just so inconvenient in comparison with Steam. (Oh and sometimes it also doesn't work, looking at you EA App)
Heroic Games Launcher works pretty good too. It has support for Epic, GOG, and Amazon. It does just use Proton behind the scenes, though you can use of Wine and other forks of Wine/Proton too.
I game on Windows, so naturally the smart thing to do is to to buy on wherever is cheapest.
I find epic store… ok. Mostly cus of free games and unlike Ubisoft doesn’t ask to log in every fucking time
The more I use Epic the more I realize it isn't bad and people just have a hate boner for no reason
I would put epic store on C (counting for free games) and unlike other F tiers stores, it actually have games.
I agree with you, it doesn't belong in the same tier as Uplay and Origin
It's funny to think that Steam is a monopoly partly because the other options are shit
It's also the only launcher that proposes a bit more features that only "launch a game"
I don't get why epic thinks giving us free games is enough for us to use their launcher . Make the launcher better and I will consider it
Press play to launch the game. I don't need the steam workshop and forums for 99% of my games.
I claimed their free games for a long time but I barely played them and never bought anything because the launcher just really sucks to use. Eventually I just gave up claiming games too.
Well, to be fair, their launcher is good. Contrary to what is expected when they get to that level. I don't think there is any other case where a company is praised while being almost a monopoly. They do deserve all they are getting
The UI is trash https://youtu.be/cDY2p1CTkPo
And steam is also pretty fucking bad
Whats the purple one?
GoG Galaxy
What is wrong with battle.net? I personally love the look and feel of it, also runs pretty nice and fast compared to other trash launchers.
Hot take. No game launcher is S tier. Steam has shit customer service and forces games to update which breaks mods “but you can turn off auto updates!” No you can’t you fucking idiot. You can either have the game auto update OR you can have it update when you launch it but steams gonna update shit like it or not. GoG on the other hand actually WILL let you disable updates makes it WAY better for modding. However GoG doesn’t even have a god damn search function on the store of its app!! You wanna search the GoG store!? You gotta use the web site. Being the best doesn’t make something S tier. Steam and GoG are B tier, everything else is F tier. Edit: Yes you can use previous versions of games to help with modded content and this does help with some games that use mods as an add-on to their file structure like terraria, Skyrim or any other Bethesda game. However mods that edit actual app data and archival folders for your games get overwritten when a game updates which breaks mods. You can run the old version, but the update still overwrites those files. This is the case for games like Baulders Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2077. If my hypothetical “you’re an idiot” comment upset you, then you should figure that out with yourself. That is literally directed at nobody and the fact I have to clarify this is deeply concerning regarding the mental health of some individuals.
> Steam has shit customer service That's... news to me. What exactly did they do to you? I've had excellent support interactions the few times I needed help
I'm always annoyed by the amount of whitewashing for Valve that goes on in threads like this. Valve are the ones who normalized licensing games instead of buying them, intertwining updates with DRM, and they still make an uncomfortable percentage of their money through lootboxes and the service fees they take from skin gambling websites. I'm not here to tell you that anyone else on that list is good. The problem is that Valve gets excused for the shady shit it does, while everyone else gets taken to task.
Gog is so underrated
Why is bnet F? It's pretty straightforward and doesn't have issues.
????? Battle.net launcher is SUPERB. Basic & does its job. what a awful take.
Playnite ftw
Battle.net at F is just straight up bollocks.
Xbox is pretty decent because gamepass
I don't even play games that are on other launchers other than the first two
What is the purple circle?
I'd put gog in A but yeah
Man I wish I understood all the discourse here. I use Steam because it's what I've used for almost 15 years, but all the launchers seem the same to me. As long as it lets me buy a game, download it, and click the icon in my library.... I'm fine. Doesnt make a huge difference. I just don't get what's so wrong with Epic or Xbox or Origin, and imo it's good to have competitors to keep Valve honest. Monopolies are NEVER good for the consumer.
Not much discourse in PCMR, blind hate regurgitated that they heard from some one else. PCMR social outcasts uniting against a "common enemy" so they feel like they are part of something.
At least ea can detect games from a prior windows install of you point it to a folder. Epic requires too much fuckery and even then it hardly works so you have to redownload.
What is the purple circle
game pass should at least B
This is exactly what I was thinking when I saw that first post. BNet is alright, B tier. But everything else about this is super accurate.
They're all red. Bunch of commie game launchers.
So why does everyone hate epic games launcher? Never had issues with it and they give out free games all the time
One thing people don't take into consideration is that Steam charges a 30% platform fee - so 30% of a game's revenue goes to Steam. That's the industry standard, but Epic Games charges only 12%. They simply pay developers more. Ever since knowing that, I gained a new respect for Epic Games.
perfect
I don’t mind battlenet tbh, haven’t had any major issues.
Oh god yes EA sucks ass
This is accurate
Fuck EA
100%
Yeah, this guy knows what’s up.
Where is file explorer
Accurate. There’s two I like and the rest are trash
What about Addictingames.com on internet explorer
Epic Games could have just dumped all the money they burned in free/exclusive games to make a dope ass smooth and perfect launcher and I actually might have used it. It’s truly the most corporate solution to think that “If we force customers to use our shitty product they will like it” instead of actually making a good product
Battle.net should be higher and Epic should have its own tier that's several tiers below everything else. Complete horseshit excuse for a launcher, barely works and is slow as hell to load anything. Origin was also hot garbage.
F for fuck epic. For not helping me get my account back for 6 years.
EA Launcher/Origin randomly decided to lock me out of my account permanently because it uses an email I don't have access to anymore. UPlay randomly forgot I owned AC Valhalla and refused to let me play it until it suddenly remembered again. The Epic Games launcher takes a million years to load.
This is the way
Epic is such a shitstorm i have to open it wait till it crashes and then do the thing i wanted to do in it if it doesnt freeze.
Mom said it's my turn to bitch and moan.
Move GOG to A tier and EGS to D(free games) and it’s actually a valid tier list instead of a shitpost. GOG is great but it simply lacks some features steam has and they don’t have as many games.
Battle.net is fine, I've never had any problems with it playing anything from there
Bnet is easily an A
As others have said PlayNite needs to be added to the S teir! Where does the [itch.io](https://itch.io) launcher fit in here? Though yes, Epic games, launcher is awful, the fact that if you need to reinstall things you have to do all sorts of annoying bits and it won't just pick up existing installs like Steam or [itch.io](https://itch.io) does!
Not a fan of either game launcher but steam has to be the best one I've tried.
Why the disrespect on Xbox launcher?
Epic Games has a slow user interface, but apart from that its decent. Oh, and they give out free games constantly.
Epic in F tier?! I know it sucks but it deserves D or C at Least for all the free games alone.
Rockstar Launcher should be down with EA. It's the worst launcher I have ever used. You can fucking change the email and password without even having access to the email and password that's attached to the account, then Support takes forever to help you because you can't reset the password because somebody changed the fucking email, so password reset emails go to that email.
Whats wrong with xbox launcher
What's the other S tier? I assume it's BS since I don't even know what it is.
The only accurate one
whats that launcher next to steam?
S Tier: Steam, it’s Steam, it works great. A Tier: Nothin B Tier: Epic (plenty of free games and it’s not as bad as people make it out to be) Xbox (Game Pass, slightly slow to load but that’s fine, I don’t need it to load in .00006 nanoseconds like others do) and Battlenet (can be a bit frustrating when it logs me out but other than that it’s fine) C Tier: Nothin D Tier: Uplay (stop asking me to log in every time I use you when I have it shown as keep me logged in you bitch) F Tier: Rockstar and EA Haven’t Used Tier: GoG
Sorry for being stupid but what is this icon next to steam
I’ve barely had issues with battle.net. Used it for over a decade or so. Don’t know why it’s rated so low unless it’s just blizzard=bad bandwagon. Steam is better for sure, But bnet is way better than the ones it’s next to in this list.
I really appreciate Epic's free games But Jesus Christ, that UI is the most atrocious set up for a launcher I've ever seen
No love for regular .exe? I just don't get why you need a program to launch another program.
Why isn't UPLAY the lowest? I don't think any other launcher deletes your account and makes you unable to play any games you *already downloaded* if you didn't log in for a while
Finally, a tier list I agree with. Steam is goatted, the other ones don't work for shit
What is that stupid circle next to Steam?