this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
47 points (100.0% liked)
PC Gaming
14915 readers
125 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't understand, didn't all games have launchers back in the 80s-early 2000's? Particularly ones that were unnecessary because you could just make an shortcut to the .exe and it would run fine?
Why don't people like them anymore?
They did, but things were different. Obvious main difference being that we didn't have centralised store apps with launchers that already do the functions you need: download, setup, updates, news, etc. (well Steam does, with workshop integration for mods and everything)
Nowadays people see launchers as an extra unnecessary step, usually requiring another account for no good reason, and, importantly, a data harvesting tool. That last one is the reason I usually see people hating a launcher. The other issue is I've seen a lot of complaints about is launchers simply breaking stuff for some people and not letting them play their game (especially on Linux).
(Generic summary, not specific to Owlcat here)
Oh, you're right. The fucking account signups now. I forgot I've seen that with Larian and CDPR, let alone the shit goblins at EA who have a mandatory launcher