That's true. If BG3 had come out 10 years earlier it would have had one of the most active workshops ever. But it doesn't even have workshop support. Scrolling through my last 50 'recent' games on Steam, the only three that have workshop support are Total War: Warhammer III, Kingdoms & Castles, and an indie title called Let's School. In the 100 most recent it's only like 10.
There are a lot of games that I know have mods, but they're just all on Nexus. If Nexus ever falls we're going to lose a lot, aren't we?
Lol I always liked the idea of Garry's Mod (that's what I'm assuming gmod is?), but I don't have a creative bone in my body, and my gaming interest isn't very community oriented, including community creations.
I mean , they have old games that I used to play like theme hospital or the first RE , I can't wait to see what old classics they will put later. Gog is the only game to scratch that itch
Fair. But personally, the UX could be hot garbage as long as they keep their DRM-free policy and allow us to download the executables and they'd still be above anything else.
Agreed, but I wouldn’t place it above Steam personally, despite my insistence on buying European goods and services, Steam’s catalog, miscellaneous tools and UX are just too good to pass up on.
I haven't used GOG yet, so I ask: how's it compared to the other aspects of steam? Like, the community and social features that steam has(marketplace, workshop, groups, community servers, etc)
I don’t think you should expect any socia aspect from GOG. They have reviews and the friends’ activities like Steam with the achievements and whatnot but that’s about it.
The catalog is limited because they enforce the “no-DRM” rule so many publishers don’t publish their games, and GOG still requires you to reach out to publish there, so unlike Steam, there is SOME amount of quality control with games.
The Galaxy client’s big selling point is that it can launch games on other clients, but the Steam integration was broken last I tried it, and I needed some alternative off of Github to make it work.
They are currently having trouble with controller support for me. The app keeps capturing controller input in the background, yesterday I was playing and The Witcher’s 3 intro started playing in the background because I somehow managed to launch a game with the controller without touching the app.
Finally, the store’s UX is abhorrent, at least on the desktop client. The way the pages load is so clunky, the way back doesn’t scroll back to where you left off, etc…
The games are 10/10 and 100% DRM-free so no complaints there. But I do tend to toss my favorites into Steam as “non-Steam games”
Given the logic of this chart you can't argue that GOG is somehow worse than pirating from a UX perspective. And you have your games equally forever. Cost is not a factor obviously as free games does nothing to help Epic in the chart.
Better performance, usually cheaper, and it tries to make old games playable in new hardware little by little. Some big mods like Fallout London get their own page so that people like me that don't like modding can just download and install that without extra effort.
steam peovides some services that gog doesn't, like builtin mods integration with the steam workshop, that's very useful in strategy games for instance (forts, age of empires), as it makes it trivial to synchronise players mods in a multiplayer lobby.
For me GOG and MS Store are "S tier" because those stores don't use game launchers. On my handheld games from those stores are faster than the same game from Steam or Epic. For example I have Valheim from both the MS Store and Steam, and when I open Valheim it looks like this (in game menu)
Valheim from MS Store (no game launcher):
memory used by game 1.4 GB
total memory used 7.2 GB
Valheim from Steam:
memory used by game 1.6 GB
total memory used 8.6 GB
So basically, the Steam version wastes 1.4 GB for a game launcher built on Google Chromium. My handheld has 16 GB total memory, divided into 10 GB system and 6 GB video. So wasting 1.4 GB on a game launcher is a problem for Valheim performance, especially when someone likes to build something bigger like me. This problem could be even bigger for games that use more memory than Valheim, for example Indiana Jones, but I don’t have the Steam versions of those games to test it.
You just click “download” like in any other store. In fact, MS Store has much faster servers than Steam or Epic, so games download much faster. I consistently get over 450 Mbps on my 500 Mbps connection on MS Store and Xbox. On Steam or Epic, I’ve never seen more than 100 Mbps in Europe
(not replying to you just my thoughts on pirating)
That's not S-tier, it's not convenient. Steam is one-click vs having to deal with pirated game, and then you don't easily get update patches, and modding the game sometimes doesn't work with pirated copies.
It's S-tier if you're broke, F-tier if you have money for gaming.
It's S tier because it costs nothing and you get to try the game for free for however long you want. I have money for gaming but it's still S, because why waste money on something that will bore me in 10 hours
Not even that, I love pirating, but I happily pay for games on cheap sales (I spent $21 bucks last night for 3 games on a really good sale) because of the Steam cloud alone. I play in between an ROG Ally X with a dual boot between Windows/Bazzite and a desktop PC. Having all my saves synced effortlessly is amazing.
SyncThing is great for syncing mods but not every pirated save works. I had an issue on one game where the save was tied to unique IDs for the PC you were on, too much of a hassle. So I just bought the game on sale and never worried about that again.
Other than the seven seas, many people upload game files on alternative hosts, games which are being hosted by data protection websites, games which are offered as a download through their own website, GoG, etc.
I mean developers can just release their game to download without overhead. Which is the best way to do it. Like Minecraft, I haven’t even used to official launcher in years, and you just download the game
i am literally unable to launch a game that i very much paid for with my money because rockstar refues to fix shitty bugs that their piece of shit launcher has
Rockstar Games launcher is absolutely crap and deserves the same criticism as EA/Ubi launchers. But for some reason this sub prefers not to talk about it.
EA aren't really packaging EA launcher in their games anymore since their 2023 releases. They however never removed the EA launcher in their older releases.
Ubisoft works okay for Trackmania when it was the only way to access it, fairly straightforward and not intrusive. but when you play via Steam the fact it still opens UC is just... silly
(Now, when I tried to play R6, Ubi Connect suuuucked. I think it's a game by game thing)
I tried to get a friend into splinter cell blacklist with me back in 2023, well he's downloading it while I'm playing it, and it cuts straight to desktop once every 5-7 minutes. No error just straight crash to desktop. Hmmm try again. Same thing?
Reboot, reinstall game, reinstall the ubishit program, still not working. Start googling the reason. Oh, it's cause blacklist doesn't work with the new Ubisoft connect program......and you need to, let's see here, download the old Uplay program from some 3rd party website in order to play the game -_-
Nevermind. If I have the here I'll just boot up my Wii u again.
Kidding aside Battlenet is mostly fine. I wish Microsoft didn't put non Blizzard games in it though, it was better when it was exclusive to Blizzard games (in my opinion).
For what it's worth that happened pre acquisition. The first non-Blizzard title was Destiny 2 in 2017, then a bunch of CoD titles. MS is definitely keeping that going with Outer Worlds 2, Sea of Thieves, Avowed, and Doom TDA for seemingly no reason though.
I think it's a good launcher, but omg, I can't have that launcher in my pc without remembering that blizzard keeps killing their games over and over again
GOG should be above S since you get all the perks of S but you're also supporting the developers and have the option of a launcher that updates your games automatically, tracks your play time, integrates with other launchers and has a built in store.
people are probably just so bored with their lives that they always try to find another reason for hatred against something that has so little impact in discussion
man for real i just don't understand. like you're annoyed you have to open EA app to open a game, but its okay that you need to open steam to open a game? you're cool with downloading a torrent thing and a bunch of other stuff to sidestep buying a game and using a launcher but you cant just launch the epic store? lol
Half the time you don’t even have to specifically open the EA app, it’ll just open in the background when you launch the game from a shortcut or something else
Not all games have workshop support though, and some games that do are really gimped versions of it like Stalker 2. It helps for games that don't have complex scripting or anything in their mods for sure though, but Nexus will always be the go to for many games.
Holy shit yes. The amount of people who refuse to play Alan Wake 2 - one of the most insane gaming experience I've ever had - because of something so trivial genuinely upsets me.
to each their own. I basically stopped playing my EA games bc I'd been doing it infrequently enough that the app (origin then) would log me out of it even when I specifically told it not to, and every single time it would have an update that with my internet could take up to 2h downloading. that's irritating, and with limited time I'd go on steam and play other games there since it's never ever gave me these issues.
so yeah. my experience with EA has instilled in me a dislike for their launcher and I will choose Steam over it
Yes, it's silly how for the sake of a little convenience players will overlook the biggest interest regarding independent platforms and launchers. A much bigger part of their money would go to the developpers, avoiding the 30% Steam tax, that is basicaly theft considering how huge it is.
S - having a game on some sort of physical media that’s independent of any online store.
A - GOG: you accept the reality of the modern digitally delivered dystopia, but get as much of the freedom and control over your games as is possible to provide within it.
F - Everything else. They’re all awful for some reason or other and you only use them because you are forced to.
And then you build a new PC or reinstall existing one and you have to plug random physical media instead of having your entire library of games available to install instantly with a click.
I don't understand why people want physical media so much when cloud is so much more convenient.
After about 35 years of PC gaming and before that home computers (C64/C128), I have to say that the "owning games forever" comes with quite some limitations.
The games only run on the hardware and OS of their time. So, you have to keep every major generation of hardware, including disk drives etc., with era appropriate versions of the operating system. And sadly, these old computers need a lot of maintenance to keep them running. The older they get, the more they just tend to break apart. And you need a more and more space for the retro computer hobby.
An alternative can be emulators. But you have to make images of your disks etc. (advisable anyways, because the disks also tend to rot away) Some effort is still required to get the different emulators set up on every new PC. You are relying on new versions that are adapted to your new OS and hardware.
Sometimes there are patches for old games that improve compatibility with newer hardware and fix bugs, some official, some made by fans. Usually only for more popular titles. But you have to search them out and each time you "transplant" your old game to a new system, you have to do all the patches all over...
Oh, and DRM was already a thing back in the 80s/90s, from copy protected disks to code wheels and copy questions in game based on handbooks, maps you have to keep at hand etc. Alternatively you need patches/cracked version to get rid of the DRM and make them work in emulators.
In my experience, tools like Steam make all this much easier with automated patches to the newest version. Basically every game I bought on Steam in the last 21 years still works. Only some really old ones need a bit of manual tuning outside of what Steams workshop offers.
There's an enormous difference between "offline password" kind of copy protection and DRM that requires logging to a server (that might not exist any more).
Especially when you don't even have the whole game (server side only features, and server software not provided to the players so they can host games themselves).
Awful review system, using up way to many resources in background, CEO is a trump meatrider, ads pushed to desktop, forcing games to be exclusive to their store.
I'd rank Epic higher, simply because it offers good games, even pretty new ones for free every now and then. I don't care about anything else in this case, as they're mostly single-player games. No need for chat or friends or anything, UI doesn't matter since I'm just starting the game on it.
GOG - you keep games, no DRM. Best case scenario if you wanna pay for games.
STEAM, Epic, PlayStation Store,other online stores/launchers. You buy a license. The moment they close your account you're fucked. Steam I marginally better as it has refund and offline functionality. Still license access, you own nothing and you're happy.
Google store - lmao. Endless trash.
Cloud gaming of any sort - hahaha. The whole idea is insanely stupid as it relies to much on connection. Also insanely consumer unfriendly as you will pay for renting time for play.
Regardless of how good the app is, or not, being able to download full DRM free installers and store them locally puts it firmly in S tier. The fact that they are also making classics from over 40 years of PC gaming playable on modern systems just furthers the point.
And gog does not only have offline installers but their own steam basically. It still needs improvements but it's there.
Uplay etc is the main reason I don't buy their games any longer. And of course Denuvo, ring-0 etc. Made the choice easy with Anno 177. Which also uses GenAi on top.
How is the Epic Store in D tier above the Windows Store which is just the Xbox Store with extra slop and EA Play? Epic could literally just have Fortnite itself as the launcher for like 3 other games and be done with it.
The only ones that actually need to exist is the App Store, Google Play Store, Steam, Xbox Store and PlayStation Store. Nothing else needs to exist. The platforms have their own shops and that’s that.
Heck, even Call of Duty has its own game launcher now it’s beyond a joke at this point.
GOG is S+ imo, drm free and you can download game from the browser and play it, but while they're alive there's also the launcher without drms and with features like achievement or online save backups.
All the people saying GOG is easy S or A tier bring me hope. Steam is great too but it is nice to see DRM free becoming more valued as companies clamp down more and more.
Lack of launcher is best launcher. OP should just have put the OS. Launchers (and browsers) tend to try to make their own mini-OS on top of the OS.
Game stores are a different (but related) issue : even GoG has store DRM, because they can't just let anyone download the paid games from a single unchanging link, and have to remember who paid for what game because they have legal obligations around refunding.
I want to point out that Steam does a lot more than just distribute games. They provide the best Linux gaming option at the moment, and is doing the most out of any platform when it comes to getting away from Microsoft; that's a big bonus. Moreover their software provides many other superb features likes Steam Input, Steam Recordings, Performance overlay, console like UI. SteamVR, SteamCMD+Servers, hardware, etc. Steam simply offers so much in excess of the game itself, it blows every other platform out of the water. Hell, family sharing is extremely lenient, it's incredible. I would personally either put it on the same level as GoG (if you care about Linux gaming) or just below it. Despite it always being high on lists like this, anyone seldom mentions anything besides game distribution...
So why is epic lower than Playstation and Microsoft? It{s not like both of those stores offer a lot of expanded functionality like Steam, and at least Epic offers a better refund policy than most storefronts (to try and match Steam's)
Holy steam glaze largely respects user when they started a casino for gambling. This company put there own prices on a skin for 1500 and you think that respects users? LMAO
We know valve really cares about their reputation, making people who leave the company to sign NDAs, so I wonder if they employ bots to spread how they are not a monopoly, is consumer friendly and how private company is good and public companies are bad. No proof though so the best we could do is speculate.
EA app needs to be lower or ubi connect needs to be tier above. They can't be on the same tier as the EA app is several levels of garbage. At least connect runs.
B tier for Google Play Store and apple App Store? Are you drunk? For a gamer, they offer nothing interesting. They don’t have a proper search and filter function. Finding interesting games that don’t try to exploit its users is more or less impossible. You have ads. The user ratings are pointless. I could go on… They just exist as gatekeepers on Android/iOS and to extract money for basically nothing. Down to F tier, I would say.
Steam is great. GoG should be up there too. But the one downside to PC is some of the anti cheats needed to be installed to play certain games. And in those cases, i'd rather just play/get the game on my Xbox Series X
Yeah I wouldn't put Microsoft store so low. It keeps lots of apps that I don't want to update manually automatically updated. Like Spotify etc. I would put apple app store lower because there is no ability to side load apps and you are forced to use it.
Absolutely agree with the ubisoft one, cant even let me create my dang account using that launcher (just want to play Farcry 4, resulting in 3 hours waste of time)
To this day I haven’t started Red Dead Redemption II because of the launcher. The 45 minutes or so of my game time was just trying to make a rockstar account. I gave up and uninstalled it. I hear it’s a good game.
I really don’t get why Epic is below Xbox and PS or even Google Play/the App Store given you’re perfectly willing to admit it works fine as well as gives out free games. If you want to rank it below Steam because it doesn’t have the track record and has a shittier interface, that’s totally fair, but you can’t give a pass to everyone else who suffers from the same problems besides Epic.
The only ones I truly hate are individual publishers having launchers, doubly so if said launcher is a sub launcher when you launch the game via Steam. Fuck Uplay especially.
Android and ios dont work "fine". You have to update it constantly or your game will be delisted. A lot of game from 2014-2020 are delisted for that very reason
I have to use the MS Store instead of the Xbox app to download Game Pass shit now because my account just suddenly decided that even though it acknowledges I am subscribed, it still prompts me to purchase instead of just being able to download. Very annoying.
The only thing holding GOG back is its extremely limited game library. Simply put, most of the games you want to buy doesn’t exist in GOG (except for anything by CDPR, ofc).
Imagine you forget about GOG.
I mean, GOG is basically what's described on S-Tier. You just download the game files without DRM, put them in a folder on your PC and run the game.
Yes and also no. You can also use a launcher and have cloud save storage, updates and also archivements.
It can be both S and A depending on the user needs
Yep I have an archive of all the downloaded GOG games on my server, but I also use Heroic Games Launcher to install them on my SteamOS rig.
(furiously taking notes)
Why an Elven Semi and not a Dwarven one?
Dwarves can actually drive, which is surprising considering their vertically challenged nature. Not like those damn elves!
But wouldn't dwarves usually be drunk all the time?
In Linux you can use Heroic Games Launcher, which integrates with GOG and does a pretty good work with wine for windows games.
GOG is better than Steam! Outside of their selection of games....
Listen here you! shaking cane at you
Not having a workshop makes it automatically worse. I like GOG and have about 100 games on it but Steam offers so much more, it's not even close.
Steam Workshop is cool but how many recent games supported that feature?
That's true. If BG3 had come out 10 years earlier it would have had one of the most active workshops ever. But it doesn't even have workshop support. Scrolling through my last 50 'recent' games on Steam, the only three that have workshop support are Total War: Warhammer III, Kingdoms & Castles, and an indie title called Let's School. In the 100 most recent it's only like 10.
There are a lot of games that I know have mods, but they're just all on Nexus. If Nexus ever falls we're going to lose a lot, aren't we?
I don't play last gen games usually. I can tell you for sure Forts would be an awful game to play without the workshop integration
On steam for 21 (!) years, and I have no idea what Workshop is.
Found the only Steam user with 0 Gmod hours
Lol I always liked the idea of Garry's Mod (that's what I'm assuming gmod is?), but I don't have a creative bone in my body, and my gaming interest isn't very community oriented, including community creations.
I mean , they have old games that I used to play like theme hospital or the first RE , I can't wait to see what old classics they will put later. Gog is the only game to scratch that itch
They have a good handful of modern and indie titles, not just old.
Yeah of course but they are the only one to have the old games reworked for modern computers , where steam just sell the 20+ years old version
Okay, yes. 100%.
The preservation aspect should put it at the top of the OP ranking
If you think GOG is forgotten, did you know that Amazon once had a game download store? I still have a couple of games that I can access there.
He probably meant OP has forgotten it. There also would be Twitch, discord, Netflix, Battlenet and Riot. And there was a Bethesda client.
Itch.io too
How do I add my specs under my name?
I'm assuming you're on mobile
Go the subreddit page > click on the three dots > change user flair > select one > edit to whatever you want
pick up GOG and smash that boy above/next to steam
Since you can download DRM-free .exe installers for every game they sell on GOG, I'd say they're S.
Yeah GoG > Steam in this context
GOG has several drawbacks in usability. I’d put it at the same level as Steam, much better ownership but much worse UX balance out imho
Fair. But personally, the UX could be hot garbage as long as they keep their DRM-free policy and allow us to download the executables and they'd still be above anything else.
Agreed, but I wouldn’t place it above Steam personally, despite my insistence on buying European goods and services, Steam’s catalog, miscellaneous tools and UX are just too good to pass up on.
I haven't used GOG yet, so I ask: how's it compared to the other aspects of steam? Like, the community and social features that steam has(marketplace, workshop, groups, community servers, etc)
GOG has the advantage of not really having any social features at all
I don’t think you should expect any socia aspect from GOG. They have reviews and the friends’ activities like Steam with the achievements and whatnot but that’s about it.
The catalog is limited because they enforce the “no-DRM” rule so many publishers don’t publish their games, and GOG still requires you to reach out to publish there, so unlike Steam, there is SOME amount of quality control with games.
The Galaxy client’s big selling point is that it can launch games on other clients, but the Steam integration was broken last I tried it, and I needed some alternative off of Github to make it work.
They are currently having trouble with controller support for me. The app keeps capturing controller input in the background, yesterday I was playing and The Witcher’s 3 intro started playing in the background because I somehow managed to launch a game with the controller without touching the app.
Finally, the store’s UX is abhorrent, at least on the desktop client. The way the pages load is so clunky, the way back doesn’t scroll back to where you left off, etc…
The games are 10/10 and 100% DRM-free so no complaints there. But I do tend to toss my favorites into Steam as “non-Steam games”
Given the logic of this chart you can't argue that GOG is somehow worse than pirating from a UX perspective. And you have your games equally forever. Cost is not a factor obviously as free games does nothing to help Epic in the chart.
Good thing pirating games was never on the table then
But then you can’t put cracked games on S tier with the same explanation
Op put "downloading from Firefox" in S tier, that's gotta be a worse ux experience than GOG
Better performance, usually cheaper, and it tries to make old games playable in new hardware little by little. Some big mods like Fallout London get their own page so that people like me that don't like modding can just download and install that without extra effort.
It's my favourite store by a fair margin.
GOG is S tier easily
Arguably half a tier above Steam for their fully DRM-free platform
GoG is absolutely goated. You buy a game - you own the files.
They even restore old games so they are playable on modern systems.
They preserve the games as they are a part of our arts and culture.
If that's not SSS Ultra Giga Elder God tier then I don't know what is.
steam peovides some services that gog doesn't, like builtin mods integration with the steam workshop, that's very useful in strategy games for instance (forts, age of empires), as it makes it trivial to synchronise players mods in a multiplayer lobby.
Above*
Put GOG in S tier and this list is basically complete for anything that matters.
GoG is above steam for me coz of DRM free stuff
For me GOG and MS Store are "S tier" because those stores don't use game launchers. On my handheld games from those stores are faster than the same game from Steam or Epic. For example I have Valheim from both the MS Store and Steam, and when I open Valheim it looks like this (in game menu)
Valheim from MS Store (no game launcher):
Valheim from Steam:
So basically, the Steam version wastes 1.4 GB for a game launcher built on Google Chromium. My handheld has 16 GB total memory, divided into 10 GB system and 6 GB video. So wasting 1.4 GB on a game launcher is a problem for Valheim performance, especially when someone likes to build something bigger like me. This problem could be even bigger for games that use more memory than Valheim, for example Indiana Jones, but I don’t have the Steam versions of those games to test it.
reinstalling windows store games is a huge pain after reinstalling the os
You just click “download” like in any other store. In fact, MS Store has much faster servers than Steam or Epic, so games download much faster. I consistently get over 450 Mbps on my 500 Mbps connection on MS Store and Xbox. On Steam or Epic, I’ve never seen more than 100 Mbps in Europe
Didn´t understand the firefox+any file app unless we are talking about the seven seas. And yes GOG is S tier.
Yes they are talking about sailing the seven seas
(not replying to you just my thoughts on pirating)
That's not S-tier, it's not convenient. Steam is one-click vs having to deal with pirated game, and then you don't easily get update patches, and modding the game sometimes doesn't work with pirated copies.
It's S-tier if you're broke, F-tier if you have money for gaming.
It's S tier because it costs nothing and you get to try the game for free for however long you want. I have money for gaming but it's still S, because why waste money on something that will bore me in 10 hours
I agree with you there, it’s only “convenient” if you’re unable to pay for games
Not even that, I love pirating, but I happily pay for games on cheap sales (I spent $21 bucks last night for 3 games on a really good sale) because of the Steam cloud alone. I play in between an ROG Ally X with a dual boot between Windows/Bazzite and a desktop PC. Having all my saves synced effortlessly is amazing.
SyncThing is great for syncing mods but not every pirated save works. I had an issue on one game where the save was tied to unique IDs for the PC you were on, too much of a hassle. So I just bought the game on sale and never worried about that again.
Having to deal with pirating being clicking on a magnet and then install.
How impossible.
Other than the seven seas, many people upload game files on alternative hosts, games which are being hosted by data protection websites, games which are offered as a download through their own website, GoG, etc.
Some games do not need launchers and can be downloaded directly from the developer's website.
Some games can be just downloaded with browser and installed directly into windows without store. Like Minecraft.
I mean developers can just release their game to download without overhead. Which is the best way to do it. Like Minecraft, I haven’t even used to official launcher in years, and you just download the game
The hatred I have for Ubisoft and EA’s DRM and launcher apps has turned me off of playing any of their games unless maybe on console. It’s that bad.
I decided to play bf6’s single player story mode because I hate myself, and half way through it stopped me from playing because I lost wifi.
Include rockstar launcher in there
i am literally unable to launch a game that i very much paid for with my money because rockstar refues to fix shitty bugs that their piece of shit launcher has
Yeah gotta check if you own the game. That you launched from Steam of all things
Rockstar Games launcher is absolutely crap and deserves the same criticism as EA/Ubi launchers. But for some reason this sub prefers not to talk about it.
EA aren't really packaging EA launcher in their games anymore since their 2023 releases. They however never removed the EA launcher in their older releases.
Ubisoft works okay for Trackmania when it was the only way to access it, fairly straightforward and not intrusive. but when you play via Steam the fact it still opens UC is just... silly
(Now, when I tried to play R6, Ubi Connect suuuucked. I think it's a game by game thing)
EA's is shit every time
I tried to get a friend into splinter cell blacklist with me back in 2023, well he's downloading it while I'm playing it, and it cuts straight to desktop once every 5-7 minutes. No error just straight crash to desktop. Hmmm try again. Same thing?
Reboot, reinstall game, reinstall the ubishit program, still not working. Start googling the reason. Oh, it's cause blacklist doesn't work with the new Ubisoft connect program......and you need to, let's see here, download the old Uplay program from some 3rd party website in order to play the game -_-
Nevermind. If I have the here I'll just boot up my Wii u again.
You missed out Blizzard
B for Battlenet/Blizzard.
Kidding aside Battlenet is mostly fine. I wish Microsoft didn't put non Blizzard games in it though, it was better when it was exclusive to Blizzard games (in my opinion).
For what it's worth that happened pre acquisition. The first non-Blizzard title was Destiny 2 in 2017, then a bunch of CoD titles. MS is definitely keeping that going with Outer Worlds 2, Sea of Thieves, Avowed, and Doom TDA for seemingly no reason though.
I think it's a good launcher, but omg, I can't have that launcher in my pc without remembering that blizzard keeps killing their games over and over again
F HotS
Blizzard lost me as a customer when, after a LONG wait, Diablo III was just- meh.
Grim Dawn (from Crate Entertainment) is to me a more worthy successor to Diablo II.
I vehemently hate the EA App. It’s so unnecessary.
It sucks ass
GoG is S tier as well.
GOG should be above S since you get all the perks of S but you're also supporting the developers and have the option of a launcher that updates your games automatically, tracks your play time, integrates with other launchers and has a built in store.
GOG is the best Gaming store period
Anyone else just enjoy playing a game without having an existential crisis over what launcher goes with it?
I truly don't understand why it upsets people so much.
people are probably just so bored with their lives that they always try to find another reason for hatred against something that has so little impact in discussion
man for real i just don't understand. like you're annoyed you have to open EA app to open a game, but its okay that you need to open steam to open a game? you're cool with downloading a torrent thing and a bunch of other stuff to sidestep buying a game and using a launcher but you cant just launch the epic store? lol
Half the time you don’t even have to specifically open the EA app, it’ll just open in the background when you launch the game from a shortcut or something else
Tbh steam does have benefits of using. It has made installing mods so simple
Not all games have workshop support though, and some games that do are really gimped versions of it like Stalker 2. It helps for games that don't have complex scripting or anything in their mods for sure though, but Nexus will always be the go to for many games.
Holy shit yes. The amount of people who refuse to play Alan Wake 2 - one of the most insane gaming experience I've ever had - because of something so trivial genuinely upsets me.
While I like having most of my games in one place, I've gotten used to all the launchers. I've never had a problem with them.
That's why gog is the best. You don't need the launcher. Imagine if steam would do this for the offline experience, it wouldn't even be a competition
I'm guessing you've never had to use Ubisoft Connect
to each their own. I basically stopped playing my EA games bc I'd been doing it infrequently enough that the app (origin then) would log me out of it even when I specifically told it not to, and every single time it would have an update that with my internet could take up to 2h downloading. that's irritating, and with limited time I'd go on steam and play other games there since it's never ever gave me these issues.
so yeah. my experience with EA has instilled in me a dislike for their launcher and I will choose Steam over it
Yes, it's silly how for the sake of a little convenience players will overlook the biggest interest regarding independent platforms and launchers. A much bigger part of their money would go to the developpers, avoiding the 30% Steam tax, that is basicaly theft considering how huge it is.
Put ubishit lower, they steal your games if you don't log in for 2 years.
Or they just steal your game whenever they feel like shutting the services down. I never even got to play my copy of The Crew that I paid for.
S - having a game on some sort of physical media that’s independent of any online store.
A - GOG: you accept the reality of the modern digitally delivered dystopia, but get as much of the freedom and control over your games as is possible to provide within it.
F - Everything else. They’re all awful for some reason or other and you only use them because you are forced to.
GoG id underrated in the market right now, providing tons of old games for cheap and DRM free games.
physical media is storage with a filesystem you can navigate through. The program to access it is file explorer.
And then you build a new PC or reinstall existing one and you have to plug random physical media instead of having your entire library of games available to install instantly with a click.
I don't understand why people want physical media so much when cloud is so much more convenient.
I would agree that physical is almost always better, which is why i have my absolute favorites in physical.
However, Logically, I love waayyy too many games to ever have them all physically, especially older games that have jumped way up in price.
After about 35 years of PC gaming and before that home computers (C64/C128), I have to say that the "owning games forever" comes with quite some limitations.
The games only run on the hardware and OS of their time. So, you have to keep every major generation of hardware, including disk drives etc., with era appropriate versions of the operating system. And sadly, these old computers need a lot of maintenance to keep them running. The older they get, the more they just tend to break apart. And you need a more and more space for the retro computer hobby.
An alternative can be emulators. But you have to make images of your disks etc. (advisable anyways, because the disks also tend to rot away) Some effort is still required to get the different emulators set up on every new PC. You are relying on new versions that are adapted to your new OS and hardware.
Sometimes there are patches for old games that improve compatibility with newer hardware and fix bugs, some official, some made by fans. Usually only for more popular titles. But you have to search them out and each time you "transplant" your old game to a new system, you have to do all the patches all over...
Oh, and DRM was already a thing back in the 80s/90s, from copy protected disks to code wheels and copy questions in game based on handbooks, maps you have to keep at hand etc. Alternatively you need patches/cracked version to get rid of the DRM and make them work in emulators.
In my experience, tools like Steam make all this much easier with automated patches to the newest version. Basically every game I bought on Steam in the last 21 years still works. Only some really old ones need a bit of manual tuning outside of what Steams workshop offers.
There's an enormous difference between "offline password" kind of copy protection and DRM that requires logging to a server (that might not exist any more).
Especially when you don't even have the whole game (server side only features, and server software not provided to the players so they can host games themselves).
GOG is S easily
Lmao where GOG
Missing GoG on this ranking is just hilarious
iTunes and play store in one tier is criminal. Play store is like buying goods from drug addicts.
GOG is straight up S tier honestly. It's no DRM, no bullshit, and you own the game
Bro includes Firefox as a game launcher but not GOG lmao
More like qBitorrent as a game launcher if he was being honest.
Where is GOG??
GoG is a better launcher than Steam, especially if you want to get older games and care about DRM.
I'm glad the only S tier you've got is browser and folder. Game launchers don't need to exist.
GOG is, by your criteria, an S tier. Pity about the lack of several notable titles, though... might drop it to A.
You forgot Nintendos laggy slop store
Putting play station store anywhere but F is diabolical
Why epic so low? Why does everyone hate it? You can buy games and they work.
It’s just a tradition now.
its mostly a hate bandwagon from early days
Reddit hate boner
Awful review system, using up way to many resources in background, CEO is a trump meatrider, ads pushed to desktop, forcing games to be exclusive to their store.
Those are the key points, but there are def more.
Agree. Epic is fine imho.
EA’s App is the only one I’d rank as F as it barely functions. That or put it in its own special tier for nearly broken garbage.
S is piracy, isn't it.
Try playnite to unify your experience
Playnite just add a client to all your client so the opposite of what OP want.
I'd rank Epic higher, simply because it offers good games, even pretty new ones for free every now and then. I don't care about anything else in this case, as they're mostly single-player games. No need for chat or friends or anything, UI doesn't matter since I'm just starting the game on it.
“offers basically nothing besides free games”
“BESIDES FREE GAMES”
bahahahahahahahahaha
GOG is S tier
GOG - you keep games, no DRM. Best case scenario if you wanna pay for games.
STEAM, Epic, PlayStation Store,other online stores/launchers. You buy a license. The moment they close your account you're fucked. Steam I marginally better as it has refund and offline functionality. Still license access, you own nothing and you're happy.
Google store - lmao. Endless trash.
Cloud gaming of any sort - hahaha. The whole idea is insanely stupid as it relies to much on connection. Also insanely consumer unfriendly as you will pay for renting time for play.
Pirating - you're the king.
The choice is yours.
I love firefox and such a great combo Gog is there too
GOG ????
GOG is S tier
GOG is absolutely tier S.
Regardless of how good the app is, or not, being able to download full DRM free installers and store them locally puts it firmly in S tier. The fact that they are also making classics from over 40 years of PC gaming playable on modern systems just furthers the point.
The steam glazing is something I will never understand
These days I might like Epic more than Steam because it has less stuff on it.
It's just a box with my games on it. I'll click one and play.
GOG is literally S Tier
You need to put GOG above S tier in its own category called "GOG Tier".
How did you not put GOG into this?!
And gog does not only have offline installers but their own steam basically. It still needs improvements but it's there.
Uplay etc is the main reason I don't buy their games any longer. And of course Denuvo, ring-0 etc. Made the choice easy with Anno 177. Which also uses GenAi on top.
GOG is S+ tier
Huge GOG fan here. Wish it had the selection steam does.
Minor annoyance with steam, x doesn't close it, it minimzes it with no option to allow it to close.
I'd rank up Epic Games Store slightly higher because it often offer cashback that is easily redeemable on next purchases
GOG is litterally the top tier
its a webstore that sells you drm free installers
firefox and file explorer shouldn’t count here, u also forgot (as people already said), gog which is defo s tier. u also forgot itch.io.
A tier list with S rank statinG “No DRM, No bullshit” and but GOG is not there. Lol
How is the Epic Store in D tier above the Windows Store which is just the Xbox Store with extra slop and EA Play? Epic could literally just have Fortnite itself as the launcher for like 3 other games and be done with it.
The only ones that actually need to exist is the App Store, Google Play Store, Steam, Xbox Store and PlayStation Store. Nothing else needs to exist. The platforms have their own shops and that’s that.
Heck, even Call of Duty has its own game launcher now it’s beyond a joke at this point.
Epic provides cashback and more money to indie games
GOG is S+ imo, drm free and you can download game from the browser and play it, but while they're alive there's also the launcher without drms and with features like achievement or online save backups.
Gog is far above everything else, easily S tier, basically the best place to get games from. I can't express how much I appreciate they exist.
Yeah, I'll agree with this, except GoG should be in there at S tier.
S class is true (and Mozilla best explorer)
All the people saying GOG is easy S or A tier bring me hope. Steam is great too but it is nice to see DRM free becoming more valued as companies clamp down more and more.
Microsoft isnt too bad, though i dont use it for games. Google play store however is bad.
Rating Epic above ubisoft connect is wild. I hate epic. Ubisoft launcher is minimal af
Steam don't give a fuck about their users at all. Check the cs market the fucked over so many players just to make a quick buck
file explorer and firefox aren't a game store or launcher
If you use them right they are
You might need to add a bit of the high seas though.
by that logic you could say that a computer is a game store or launcher or that c++ is a restaurant
The plus is supposed to signify using them together.
Using a browser to download stuff directly, and file explorer to launch them.
Lack of launcher is best launcher. OP should just have put the OS. Launchers (and browsers) tend to try to make their own mini-OS on top of the OS.
Game stores are a different (but related) issue : even GoG has store DRM, because they can't just let anyone download the paid games from a single unchanging link, and have to remember who paid for what game because they have legal obligations around refunding.
a game launcher is a program where you have a list of games that you can launch. How doesn't a folder with links match that description?
Gog S tier
Xbox A tier due to play anywhere
Epic B tier due to free games
Steam C tier due to being the most feature rich.
Luna (formerly Prime Gaming) is actually not bad. Most of the games install with no DRM even.
Honestly extremely solid
I want to point out that Steam does a lot more than just distribute games. They provide the best Linux gaming option at the moment, and is doing the most out of any platform when it comes to getting away from Microsoft; that's a big bonus. Moreover their software provides many other superb features likes Steam Input, Steam Recordings, Performance overlay, console like UI. SteamVR, SteamCMD+Servers, hardware, etc. Steam simply offers so much in excess of the game itself, it blows every other platform out of the water. Hell, family sharing is extremely lenient, it's incredible. I would personally either put it on the same level as GoG (if you care about Linux gaming) or just below it. Despite it always being high on lists like this, anyone seldom mentions anything besides game distribution...
Include CDPR Red Launcher into the 'shouldn't exist category'.
So why is epic lower than Playstation and Microsoft? It{s not like both of those stores offer a lot of expanded functionality like Steam, and at least Epic offers a better refund policy than most storefronts (to try and match Steam's)
Someone tell him mozzilla also track your data
Holy steam glaze largely respects user when they started a casino for gambling. This company put there own prices on a skin for 1500 and you think that respects users? LMAO
We know valve really cares about their reputation, making people who leave the company to sign NDAs, so I wonder if they employ bots to spread how they are not a monopoly, is consumer friendly and how private company is good and public companies are bad. No proof though so the best we could do is speculate.
based and truth pilled
How is epic worse than steam? Developers get a bigger % of sales
EA app needs to be lower or ubi connect needs to be tier above. They can't be on the same tier as the EA app is several levels of garbage. At least connect runs.
Is there a tier above S?
Because that's where DVDs before online authentication sits.
Where is cdrom ranked at?
Galaxy is more of a library than a launcher, as their games are DRM-free. As an app, it's weak, but it does the basics:
1) Tracking achievements and time spent in-game
2) Configuring launch and some other game settings, although this can be done using Windows tools.
3) Tracking friends' activity in selected games
4) Integrations (very limited and quite problematic)
5) I find it easier to download extra game content in Galaxy rather than on GOG website.
I lost access to gtaV because of the stupid rockstar launcher
Battle.net
B tier for Google Play Store and apple App Store? Are you drunk? For a gamer, they offer nothing interesting. They don’t have a proper search and filter function. Finding interesting games that don’t try to exploit its users is more or less impossible. You have ads. The user ratings are pointless. I could go on… They just exist as gatekeepers on Android/iOS and to extract money for basically nothing. Down to F tier, I would say.
Steam is great. GoG should be up there too. But the one downside to PC is some of the anti cheats needed to be installed to play certain games. And in those cases, i'd rather just play/get the game on my Xbox Series X
Xbox app should be in its own G tier.
Yeah I wouldn't put Microsoft store so low. It keeps lots of apps that I don't want to update manually automatically updated. Like Spotify etc. I would put apple app store lower because there is no ability to side load apps and you are forced to use it.
Absolutely agree with the ubisoft one, cant even let me create my dang account using that launcher (just want to play Farcry 4, resulting in 3 hours waste of time)
To this day I haven’t started Red Dead Redemption II because of the launcher. The 45 minutes or so of my game time was just trying to make a rockstar account. I gave up and uninstalled it. I hear it’s a good game.
I really don’t get why Epic is below Xbox and PS or even Google Play/the App Store given you’re perfectly willing to admit it works fine as well as gives out free games. If you want to rank it below Steam because it doesn’t have the track record and has a shittier interface, that’s totally fair, but you can’t give a pass to everyone else who suffers from the same problems besides Epic.
The only ones I truly hate are individual publishers having launchers, doubly so if said launcher is a sub launcher when you launch the game via Steam. Fuck Uplay especially.
I thought I was the only one using Epic launcher just for the free games lol
Nah. Ubi connect and EA play are WAY better than R* shit, there was a time I couldn't even launch RDR2 and GTA5, such an absolute dog shit software.
why the fuck does ubisoft need an DRM
Android and ios dont work "fine". You have to update it constantly or your game will be delisted. A lot of game from 2014-2020 are delisted for that very reason
Psn is lowest tier No refunds
I have to use the MS Store instead of the Xbox app to download Game Pass shit now because my account just suddenly decided that even though it acknowledges I am subscribed, it still prompts me to purchase instead of just being able to download. Very annoying.
Where is gog? It should be up in the top.
Microsoft store needs to sit in hell, even F Tear it too good lmao
There really needs to be a “Y” tier for “why does this exist?”
The only thing holding GOG back is its extremely limited game library. Simply put, most of the games you want to buy doesn’t exist in GOG (except for anything by CDPR, ofc).