Blizzard games are coming to Steam
Blizzard games are coming to Steam
www.theverge.com
Blizzard games are coming to Steam
I guess they're giving up on convincing people to download their launcher.
288 comments
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I really wish Steam would put their foot down and stop these launchers. They are nothing but a nuisance and add no value for the customer.
EDIT: Just to be clear, when EA Play joined Gamepass there wasn't a separate launcher when you went to play an EA game on the Xbox. Steam could make this work with them and the other companies. They have enough pull to make this work - it would be greatly welcomed.
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According to the steam page it says it only requires a battle.net account. Usually it says when another launcher is required.
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Steam having a monopoly is not a good thing for anyone. Competition is good, even if the other launchers are a bit annoying.
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Yeah but like, launcher isn't a market. Game Store is the market they're in. I'll happily buy a game from a different store if thats the only place it's offered or even if it's just cheaper there. The annoyance is when they want to be Steam. I don't want to be forced to download another launcher to play a game. If you want what Steam has, create a launcher that offers better services than Steam.
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This isn't a monopoly issue. Other launchers exist. Most of the games on Steam are available on these other launcher, yet people still prefer Steam.
I can only speak for myself, but I prefer Steam because it's more customizable so I can set it to open to my library first instead of a rotating ad banner, the storefront ads are not intrusive and can be easily ignored, and steams remote play is something that no other launcher offers.
In fact, I am not sure what the other launchers offer that they excel at over Steam.
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Steam has competition by way of Epic, EA, Blizzard. Steam is just the far superior product and people don’t want to change
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Having a monopoly is not good.. I just wish others wouldn't completely ignore Linux users.. Valve/Steam on the other hand is seriously pushing it forward which makes me very much biased toward them.
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At least Valve isn't a public company and beholden to shitty investor politics though, so I am more okay with Steam than... literally any other game launcher.
Plus they're the only launcher that fully supports Linux, so until that changes I am rooting for Steam.
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Yeah, steam is good, but it can get bad if they sit around for too long and get fat. The threat of others is a good thing.
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Competition is good, even if the other launchers are a bit annoying.
What does "competition" between companies really mean? It means they are competing for customers. Annoying me with shitty launchers is the opposite of competing. Make things cheaper, offer better services and more features. This is competition. Steam (and GOG) is the only one actually "competing" here. And look what happened? Microsoft, Ubisoft, Blizzard... one by one they fall to Steam because they simply cannot comprehend this fact.
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i love how polarizing the votes on this are, you aren't wrong. gog is a huge competitor but they have their own launcher too which is annoying
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False. It’s a good thing for Gabe.
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So let them distribute their launchers and storefronts, Valve couldn't stop it. But it's not monopolistic for Steam to say "if you want us to approve your product for our store, you can't have the game launch into a pop-up for someone else's store".
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How is a shiti launcher a competition...
You want competition go to GoG or Epic... Or pirate
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Back in 2011, Rob Pardo of Blizzard said of Diablo III's always-online requirement, "I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that.”
I wasn't a fan of that sentiment and I haven't played a Blizzard game since.
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All except Diablo. Diablo I is still my favorite Diablo game, though.___
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The only bliz games i would consider playing lol
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Never touched my Blizzard Account again after the sexual harassment and paygap scandal.
I've put 15 years of lifetime into my druid... It still hurts a little because I've loved WoW for a long time.
So Blizz switching to Steam couldn't interest me any less.
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Same after they kowtowed to China about Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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Ditto. I won't even give them usage stats on games I had previously purchased. Nothing to take to the board and say "we have returning users that we hope to convert into sales!"
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Now I'm not gonna buy/play them on steam too
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You and me both brother.
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Glad they made this decision right after the worst patch in Diablo history
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I love this! Finally there’s going to be actual statistics to see how much their games are actually dying.
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Blizzard had plans to dump the launcher shortly after D3 2.0 dropped. Then they backpedaled and where like no wait launcher is great! 🤷♂️
“Players on Steam will still have to connect Overwatch 2 to a Battle.net account, but they’ll have access to all of Steam’s amenities like their friends list and achievements.”
Lol. Okay then.
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It's surprising because it's Blizzard
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Link to original news source on Blizzard.com https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23982127/overwatch-2-coming-to-steam-on-august-10
Link to the Steam Page https://store.steampowered.com/app/2357570/Overwatch_2/
Finally, so much people will join, that I'm sure someone will fix the Proton bug where the mouse pointer loses focus and you have to tab out and back in to regain focus after respawning. Hell, there are so many heroes that don't require precise aiming, that it would even make it a playable game on the Steam Deck.
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It has been fixed in protonGE
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Does valve ever merge commits from PGE ?
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People love a monopoly when it suits them
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Steam is the best platform by far, and the only one with Linux support. It's not Valve's fault if other publishers aren't even trying to make a good product.
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People love things that benefit them as consumers and hate things that don't, end of
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It wouldnt be so notable if they just let me download the game by itself. If I have to download a fucking launcher every time then I want the games to be centralized atleast somewhat.
Seriously every fucking conpany a fucking launcher for a while there, even fucking bethesda had one.
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I'm permanently annoyed with the launcher thing, too. I wish someone would come up with a software store app that 1) installed all the right crap so the game works right and 2) didn't require you to open the app to open the game. Steam, for example, lets you install the game with a start menu shortcut, but if you don't have Steam open, clicking on the start menu shortcut opens Steam first, then Steam launches the friggin' game. Then there is the Bethesda launcher. Then Blizzard's Battle.net launcher. There's an Xbox launcher. Yadda yadda. I don't know if their primary goal is monopoly as much as it is forcing you to open a program with a store in it so you see stuff to buy when you want to play a game. I think having a monopoly is secondary. Primary to them is forcing you to see that they have more shit for you to buy. I'm pretty sure Apple's iTunes is the one that started it all. Let's integrate shopping for music into the computer. Then, the phone. Now it's not just music. It's every friggin' thing. People with shopping addictions must have a hard time if they're also gamers or fans of other digital media.
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I doubt anyone will complain if Blizzard's games are brought to other storefronts too.
I like Steam. Steam has the best features, best UI, good sales, and while they are not without faults (systems can stay unchanged for a long time!), they are run by a company that by and large respects its userbase.
I don't mind if games are brought to Steam and any or all other storefronts. Put it on GOG, Windows Store, EGS, Itch.io, battlenet, Origin, Uplay... You name it, I approve of it going there also. If those other storefronts want me to use them, they need to provide a comparable or superior experience. GOG comes the closest, but its inability to get games in a timely or predictable manner, if at all, is too much of an obstacle for me.
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I'm ambivalent on console exclusives for this reason. It certainly drives sales for a console, but it's so anti consumer
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I feel like a game being made available on an additional platform is like the opposite of monopoly. If steam paid Blizzard for exclusive storefront rights and you could only get the games on PC from Steam id be inclined to agree.
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“Steam should be the only game launcher I use”
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Indeed! Monopolies are great. Why have five stores when you can have a one-stop-shop?
It is the capitalism that is wrong.
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Apparently Steam is being sued for being a monopoly and abusing it, which is probably why they have to allow other companies games now.
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Valve has like five games, and the hundreds of thousands of other games on Steam are from other companies, and they've had 3rd-party games since 2005.
Activision/Blizzard didn't put their games on Steam so they can push their own store, it was to not make payments to a third party, and have high visibility of their own products (e.g. advertise CoD to Diablo players and vice versa). Of course, they miss out on the visibility of being on the largest game marketplace.
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Isn't Diablo 4 one of the top profitable games this year (if you include extra transactions), and are there deets on how much Overwatch 2 makes in a month?
Naturally gamers here don't care, but I imagine much like Madden or Fifa the mainstream buys tons of Blizzard stuff.
When I did in home jobs decades ago there were quite a few people who played Warcraft and not even remotely familiar with other games let alone how to use their PCs
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I mean Diablo 4 is going gangbusters right now. They may be irrelevant to your tastes but clearly they're pretty popular with gamers as a whole still.
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D2R was amazing and D4 has a huge player base.
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Awww, they are such a good guys. They are doing this for us and they want to make sure they respect user's choice. Totally it's not the fact Overwatch2 is not earning anything and other games have been in decline since Activision merger.
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Probably more just prepping for the MS deal to be finished as they've promised to bring games to other platforms/launchers.
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With ActiBlizz it's all about money. Just look at D3 auction house. They purposely dropped wrong items to players in order to force them to use auction house. When it was found out they backtracked. But it's always been like that. Same with WoW and mounts. Etc. They keep milking everything.
I have never thought I'd see the day when I think MS is the good guy in a merger.
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i'd be okay with having diablo on my steam library. too bad i bought them all on battle.net....
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If it goes how Bethesda did you'll migrate your library over
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That's what happened to Destiny 2 from battle.net to steam, expansions and all.
But different sitch I guess, Activision was selling the IP
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Great news for Linux users! Bnet was one of the better launchers, but having a launcher for 5 games is a bit silly.
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There's nothing stopping them from pulling of a Rockstar move and still requiring you to use a launcher when you start the game in Steam.
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So far that is not the plan - they could change it of course I'm sure, but it won't be this way at launch.
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Yeah, but it's a bit easier to install the game directly from Steam instead of installing Bnet as a non Steam game and then downloading the game on Bnet.
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Lol. I have hundreds of hours on OW (NOT OW2) and Diablo III (not IV), and i can safely say I forgo ever playing those 2 games again because of the toxic entity that is Acti-Blizz. Not that I have much choice considering OW cannot even be played as its own game now.
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You'll have to hold out for OW Classic (that you'll have to rebuy).
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That one single downvote is because they know it's true. 🤣
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Played alot of OW but really not a fan of OW2 and how the whole game revolves around the battle pass.
Was nice to just play a game or two a night, get my free lootbox and slowly get skins
Now unless you dedicate a full time job amount of hours, you'll be lucky to get 4 unlocks a seasons
Plus single tank is awful
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I left when I read that Blizzard staff got the axe while Kotick got himself a sweet sweet money enema of a bonus.
When Michael Chu left in 2020 i started playing more Monster Hunter and Genshin. When Jeff Kaplan left I finally uninstalled Battle.net.
Now unless you dedicate a full time job amount of hours, you’ll be lucky to get 4 unlocks a seasons
Thanks. At least I have some affirmation I made the right choice. At least I can be content I'm playing something worthwhile like Genshin. #damnedeitherway 🤣 🤣 🤣
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I still think they're gonna just launch Blizzard.net anyways, similar to Ubisoft games and EA games. Let's not get too ahead now.
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You still have to use Battle.net, so that's an absolute no-go from me.
Glad they're giving folks options though.
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The launcher isn't really the problem, it's the fact that Overwatch 2 isn't making them any money!
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Reading the comments I tend to think that people are so unfamiliar with competition that they fail to recognize it when seeing it at work: if you have competition, stuff fails and dies. This idea that everything should survive and that I as the user should be the receptacle of thousands of shitty products preaching variety as an excuse for their existence is insane. Launchers existed, could have used IP as an advantage to develop a valid product instead failed and therefore will disappear. I still use GOG Galaxy no problem alongside Steam.
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Battle.net has been around since at least StarCraft 1. I'm glad Blizzard is showing signs of throwing in the towel when better storefronts/launchers are available
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I can nearly guarantee you that once you download it from Steam servers that it will require the Battle.net launcher.
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This is battle.net 2.0. Most of Battle 1.0's functionality had to either be ported or just isn't there.
Battle.net 1.0 is so different that warcraft III vomited server instability when it moved to 2.0. They're the same in name only.
And as others have pointed out, it will probably still require 2.0 in order to play the games, just that Steam's launcher will point you to battle.net
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Since Diablo. Back when I played on dialup. I'm old.
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Pretty obviously trying to pull an "Apex Legends" to try and save the flailing Overwatch 2.
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I'm not a hardcore gamer but I'm a fan of cloud gaming, first Google Stadia (rip) and later Gforce Now. And Gforce Now supports Steam games so the more games available in the Steam-catalogue, the better.
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Well, not all Steam games. Funny thing is, launcher isn't even totally the barrier to getting a game in GFN; UPlay and Epic have games available in GFN as well. Whenever I'm away from home and decide to use cloud, I mostly end up playing Ubisoft games through them.
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This is really good and really bad news.
On the plusside, it really seems like running Battle.net is not a requirement, and it just logs in the bnet account once ingame. Two thumbs up. More availability and people being able to use Steam as a somewhat sensible launcher instead of the frankly annoying Battle.net, even better.
On the downside, I guess this also confirms beyond the investors call that OW2 is bleeding players quickly - and for good reason, since they've shown they cannot handle the fundamental design changes from the switch to 5v5 at all.
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Overwatch 2 failing is bad news? It's everything wrong with GAAS development. If it eats shit and dies, the industry can only take away good lessons from it.
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I was burned on the notion that I could no longer play Overwatch 1. I have 2 copies, one PC and one PS5, that are just coasters now. Granted things are digital these days, but restoring OW1 would be a good first step.
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They'll learn lessons, just not the ones we want them to.
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Ow1 with flexible teams was fine, I get why they added the restrictions, but they didn't help.
Ow2 is pointless trash.
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This'll be nice. I refused to play blizz games based on their conduct with women and I didn't want their launcher on my pc.
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The company that makes Doom lets you use steam and allows you to transfer your data.
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Microsoft.
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Being able to play the original Warcraft again would be awesome and nostalgic.
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You can score a copy of it on GoG. Then download Wargus and enjoy it with more modern controls ;)
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This is great info! I wanted to try it, but the very dated controls stopped me in my tracks
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I'm actually looking forward to checking it out on Steam, then I don't have to fiddle around anymore with Lutris on my Linux box and I can just use Proton normally within Steam itself.
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Quite a treasure you have there in that horadric boob
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I wonder what the playercounts will look like? It'll only capture people launching the game through Steam, of course, but I figure they'll be decently high and score among the top concurrent players anyway.
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If it's anything like Path of Exile, around 60% of their playerbase uses Steam over their standalone launcher.
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Great news!
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Bwahahaha. I was already back and forth with wow for the longest time after wotlk but you could see the direction change and I was a huge overwatch fan. It was my new TF2. But damn it was like coming out of childhood and realizing your favorite hero was not who you thought he was. I'm still holding out hope for valve. They aren't public (I don't think) and gabe has made some very good business decisions. Not to mention the steam deck has done more to take market away from the guilt windows has on gaming. This is a wild time to be alive.
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Valve is just about the only company I somewhat trust. Pre-ordered the highest version of the steam deck, and the way they handled the entire development process solidified my faith in them
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For real, they're like one of the only companies I know left that just do their thing and not step on anyone's toes. Also the sly push to Linux gaming from creating the steam deck and having people want to make it compatible. Most my machines are Linux now. I only have 1 gaming windows PC left. I wanna learn by immersion.
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I wonder how this decision relates to the Microsoft acquisition.
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Microsoft did go on the record saying that pulling Call of Duty from Steam was a mistake. Given that they also release their own exclusives on Steam, it's clear they understand that, even if Valve takes a 30% cut, not releasing on Steam is almost as bad as not releasing your game at all.
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Just Overwatch 2?
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Looks like it's a start of a selection of games. Given that they only make a few games, I read that as all our games.
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Can we have Overwatch 1 instead?
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I've been boycotting Blizzard since the bNetd bullshit.
Glad Steam lets you block entire publishers.
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I’ve been boycotting Blizzard since the bNetd bullshit.
Hey, neat! This is the first time I've ever seen somebody other than myself commenting that.
Figures that I'd have to leave Reddit for Lemmy to find it.
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Hey, me too, nice to see you both :)
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Please yes. Running Diablo in steam deck is annoying. Install lutris, run battle.net,then run Diablo, then login to battle.net, then login to Diablo, then pick your character to actually play the game. Please remove some steps
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Oh wow, I use Steam to launch B.net. I don't know how Lutris handles their translation layer, but Steam's Proton hasn't failed me!
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We still can't get free expansions for WoW subscribers? I can't think of any other service where you have to buy the software and pay to use it. Either you buy it and own at least that version outright or you pay a recurring fee for access to the latest version.
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FFXIV also has this model, and tbf, every sub-based MMO. ESO, for instance, also requires you to buy latest expansions to be able to play it.
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This used to be pretty common. And to be fair, I prefer this model compared to excessive cash shops. (WoW also has one which I don't like, but at least there is no item shop. Though I'm sure they would if it not caused too much of a backlash)
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Hope, that sc2 would achieve some online from this move
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Will it keep blocking Linux / Steam Deck users from playing, though?
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Battle.net works pretty well in Linux at the moment.
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Only OW2 for now, hopefully HS soon though.
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If they can do GOG I'll pick up their games, steam is ok but really I want to own my games and only GOG does that.
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Haven’t you always dreamed of having a launcher to launch your launcher which launches the actual game? Seriously who approves these choices
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I really hope that when Microsoft buys Activision that they bring back Overwatch 1 and put it on Steam. I played OW1 pretty constantly for over 3 years and was having fun with it until the day they shut it down. I played OW2 for less than two weeks and haven't touched it since release. I can respect that some people prefer OW2, but for me it's not even close.
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Not happening.
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It's been [UMPTEEN YEARS] since I registered a Steam account, and when I registered my CD key for original Half-Life, I got the Blue Shift and Opposing Force for free. (As is the case with of most Steam library items, I've yet to complete them!) Now. Please let me transfer my shit from Battlenet to Steam. I can't wait to get my Starcraft installed! I could finally be a proper PC gamer! /very mild sarcasm
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Nah
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YES! Very legal very cool
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It'll be nice to at least track playtimes and have that data in 1 location.
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The only good game that Blizzard has released is Diablo 3, in my opinion.
Also, they are a shitty company that I do not plan to support on Steam.
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Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, Star Craft, Diablo, Diablo 2...
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Personally, I had never been into Warcraft or Starcraft. For me Diablo 3 is the peak, I like how well it is optimised for the consoles. It is my preference.
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I mean, people seem to have liked the Diablo 2 remaster, along with both StarCraft games. So I'm excited to check those out.
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I'm sure their games will still use their bnet DRM, d4 especially. Seems like a cheap cash grab, but what else to expect from actiblizz
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Lol the desperation of a flailing bad company. Sorry Blizzard, winter is over.
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Gimme steam support for D4 so I can get full compatibility on my steamdeck
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Blizzard is trash and so is Steam
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Why is steam trash?
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But steam is where I keep my trash. No need for a second pile
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Considering how poorly their dev’s have been since Activision-Blizztard went woke (around when Vanguard came out) it’s no surprise they are trying to maximize their market. Back when WoW was the undisputed champion of all things MMO’s they never would have considered doing this.
Diablo 4 is garbage, they literally destroyed the concept of seasons that was what kept people playing Diablo 3 for so long.
I’m actually kind of surprised that they aren’t showing up on the Microshaft store first.
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I don't understand what the word woke is supposed to mean here...
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288 comments
Not gonna play them if they include their launcher after game is started from Steam lol.
EDIT: I am very happy to hear that everyone hates them. EA as well as Rockstar has shown that their launchers are shit. On Steam Deck EA games often fail to start at all due to EA launcher updates, and Rockstar launcher takes around 3-5 minutes to start a fucking game (which should start instantly).
This should be unacceptable. Launchers are bloatware.
I don't understand what the point of a blizzard launcher is - steam is already a launcher.
Ads. Ads and data harvesting.
The Battle.net launcher pre-dates Steam though, doesn’t it?
Edit: guess not. Steam came out in 2003. I hadn’t heard of it until well after the Battle.net launcher came out in 2013. 🤷🏻♂️
Mike Ybarra confirmed on the bird site that these games will launch directly through Steam, no bundled launcher nonsense.
That's awesome!
I've heard OW2 has dropped PVE while it was confirmed that PVE will exist lol.
Battle.net launcher can literally be closed after the game is running. It even has a setting to automatically do so. Why would they pull this sort of bullshit, I have no idea
They aren't, they said that the Steam versions of Blizzard games will not require the Battle.net launcher at all.
Each time battle net launcher opens,it displays a popup banner for cosmetics, warcraft stuff, overwatch stuff etc. They get free ads in your eyeballs.
No way they will let it go. It will be steam -> battle.net -> game
My immediate reaction was:
Pffffffffffff.....get fucked!
Do we know if it'll work this way ? It sounds so stupid but I wouldn't put it past them
Pretty sure it either allows to login within game, or launches their own (micro?) launcher first, where you have to login with Blizzard account and then starts the game.
Pretty much all "steam games" that are primarily available elsewhere run this way using mini launchers...
I mean, this sounds suspiciously like something a company that makes the device that also owns and runs the biggest digital game store might do intentionally.
Except its not. Valve has gone out of their way to make sure other peoples' games and launchers work, even if they're not selling directly through Steam. Look at the Proton patch notes if you're not just being a conspiratorial asshole and actually care about the facts.