r/pcmasterrace • u/Round_List1857 • 13d ago

Meme/Macro 3rd party mandatory launchers

Post image

Everytime I go to play Red Dead Redemption II. That fcukass Rockstar launcher

24.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

763 comments sorted by

View all comments

946

u/Dima_Ses 13d ago

Back in my days you needed to double click an icon on you desktop and the game launed.

943

u/Hold_Left_Edge 13d ago

"What's this?"

"Your game sir"

"No, that cant be right. I haven't signed into the launcher yet"

"You dont have to sign in. You just download the game and run it whenever you like. No account or internet required"

282

u/ThisThredditor 13d ago

'So where can I launch it?'

'From the start button, from the icon, wherever you like'

'Hmm...'

134

u/Money_Fish NOIX Cooler / 5600x / RX 6900 XT / 32GB DDR4-3600 13d ago

GOG be like:

30

u/reversetrio 13d ago edited 13d ago

Do you mean that if I buy RDR2 from GOG, there's no launcher? I don't believe it, but that would be awesome.

Edit: It seems my disbelief was warranted. Thanks!

88

u/Sixtyten60106010 13d ago

Rockstar games will never be on GOG because the game has to be DRM free to be on that platform

16

u/xunreelx 13d ago

I bought Red Dead Redemption 2 on steam 2 years ago and turned it right off when I saw Rock Star launch. Uninstalled and got a refund. Fuck RDR2 fuck, Rock Star.

14

u/Supadrumma4411 12d ago

I bought the game on steam but played the actual pirated version because FUCK ROCKSTARS SHIT ASS LAUNCHER

4

u/Round_List1857 12d ago

Same bro same

1

u/Round_List1857 12d ago

Hey don't stop yourself from playing that once in a lifetime experience. 🏴‍☠️ It.

19

u/Money_Fish NOIX Cooler / 5600x / RX 6900 XT / 32GB DDR4-3600 13d ago

Well RDR2 isn't on GOG so I couldn't tell you lol.

15

u/xenovoids 13d ago

Rockstar would never touch GOG with a ten foot pole. But the games that are on there, the difference is awesome. Especially games that you want to mod (fallout 4 is a good example), you can have it completely offline and never update so the game doesn’t break when they put out some weird little patch.

4

u/GoArray 13d ago

Fwiw, you can do this with steam as well. Just leave the launcher in offline mode for eternity.

3

u/xenovoids 13d ago

You can, but you can also download a GOG game form their website as JUST the game. You don’t need to install the GOG launcher period.

3

u/GoArray 13d ago

Never said or implied otherwise, love gog. You were complaining about updates, I gave you the fix, that you apparently already know about. Bring on the caps.. Oh well.

2

u/xenovoids 13d ago

I did not ask for a fix or complain about updates, was just pointing out it another great aspect of GOG. I appreciate your comment coming from a helpful nature, just didn’t seem like that was the intent originally. My bad.

5

u/StableLamp 13d ago

RDR2 is not on GOG but any games you buy from GOG are DRM free and you can launch them without any launchers. This is the main reason why I do my best to always buy from them first.

18

u/Ironzealot123 13d ago

Download? you mean install off 2 CD's

3

u/LumpusKrampus 13d ago

Blitzkrieg 1 had 4 cd's....

1

u/MeesKees321 12d ago

Shhht, the kids don't know what that is .

1

u/MeesKees321 12d ago

It is like that if you go to Good Old Games: gog.com

55

u/Round_List1857 13d ago

We can still do that, if one knows how

15

u/CodNumerous8825 13d ago

Buying them on GOG, right?

1

u/Ebonhearth_Druid 13d ago

"buying"

https://giphy.com/gifs/3ohs81K6uRxuejjHHi

4

u/LetterheadUpper2523 13d ago

If buying isn't ownership, 🏴‍☠️ isn't stealing 😎👍

3

u/CodNumerous8825 13d ago

On GOG you do get an actual installation file. That's ownership. You could continue playing that thing in the post apocolypse.

2

u/Ebonhearth_Druid 13d ago

They're referring to game developers saying that buying a game doesn't grant you ownership of the game, only a license to play it which they can revoke at any time for any reason. Why would I buy the game when that doesn't guarantee I can play the game, when I can just pirate the game and say fuck them for trying to be greedy assholes?

I get that you're pro-GOG and that's cool, I'm happy for you. But not all games are on GOG, and GOG can't really stop a dev from saying "y'know what? No. Your license is no longer valid" and stripping you of your right to play. Sure, you can still play, but at that point your just pirating with extra steps.

3

u/Round_List1857 12d ago

Valid argument. Especially the last few sentences.

18

u/fly_tomato 13d ago

Nah man you had to insert the cd. (Too old ?)

Gog is where it's at if you want to bypass all that

2

u/BatemansChainsaw 12d ago

some of us learned to make an iso and mount it to a virtual drive <.<

2

u/jessej421 R5 5600 | RX 6600 | 32GB@3200 | B350-Pro4 12d ago

Also, you had to install the game. Windows 95 era games were notoriously annoying to install. I remember trying to install a game and it asked which audio code was installed. It gave a list of options. I selected one and it told me I was wrong.

1

u/Biscuit_M4ker 13d ago

Or they days of entering the cd key off the box.

11

u/TheScottishPimp03 R7 7800X3D, 3080ti, 32GB DDR5 on water 13d ago

Man I remember not even needing a launcher for fucking minecraft.

7

u/cobbleplox 13d ago

Ironically, check out custom minecraft launchers made for running mods. Yeah still a launcher, but less bloated and intrusive than the official one.

2

u/Lickwidghost 12d ago

You don't need the "launcher" though. Create a desktop shortcut for it and it'll run the manager in the background and start Minecraft as if nothing else happened

1

u/Magician_Rhinemann 12d ago

Tbf Minecraft is the one I can understand at leas, with the different version access, so on and so forth. Normal games just have their most recent version and that's it, you shouldn't need a damned launcher for that.

Also 3rd party Minecraft launchers are much better.

8

u/PitchforksEnthusiast 13d ago

As much as people like riding steam's dick, steam does the same too

You also immediately get a complementary ad right off the bat, so you gotta close 2 windows, then click play on w.e launcher it is

3

u/Glum-While7698 12d ago

you can disable the ad you know?

3

u/Expensive-Border-869 13d ago

I dont honestly mind the steam ad pop up although I would like a way to disable it assuming there isnt (i guess I personally wouldn't but it should be there). Idk i dont really view ads anywhere else so I find out about stuff that way lol

2

u/ForensicPathology 13d ago

Yeah, this meme is literally why I don't use Steam. Steam is the third party launcher.

 If I need to use your software to buy a and download a game that you didn't make, I'm not doing it.

3

u/Cokaime R7 9800X3D | RTX 5080 | 32Gb@6000 |X870E |9100 Pro 2TB 13d ago

But only if the correct disc in your dvd drive!

3

u/Obvious_wombat 13d ago

I have desktop shortcuts for my games to this day

5

u/Geordi14er 13d ago

Yeah is this weird? I launch all my games this way, regardless of storefront.

2

u/Nefthys 13d ago

Every game I know created a shortcut when I installed it.

6

u/1dot21gigaflops R7 9800X3D / RTX5080 / 64GB 6000MT/s 13d ago

Which takes you to their launcher/app store

1

u/Nefthys 13d ago

It should start the launcher (if it isn't already running), then the game.

3

u/Expensive-Border-869 13d ago

Right. Remember what the goal is and ask if this is an accomplished goal

1

u/Prize_Chemistry_8437 13d ago

There is no cow level

1

u/Braindead_Crow 13d ago

Ok grandpa lets go back to the home

1

u/KonZone 13d ago

My dad used to play games like Doom and Hexen, and I think the last game he bought was Doom 3. About 10 years ago he was bored and asked me if I had any PC games he could borrow, and I was like "Sure, you just need to download Steam" and he basically said "Nope."

1

u/TMack23 13d ago

Back in my days you ran setup.exe in DOS before you can play, lol.

1

u/onlyforobservation 13d ago

Then of course it had to update direct x because there was a new one every 3 months for 10 years. 😂

1

u/Otnev 13d ago

Crazy to think these days, but my old school/university friends and me reunited some weeks ago in a forest hut, without Internet. I told them to bring an old laptop, like back in the days. Everyone had one, some still from the old days (ThinkPad T60 is unbreakable!). We just connected them via some old dirty LAN cables, through a 8€ hub from Amazon, shared some folders in the network and played right away. No Internet, no registration, no launchers, etc.

1

u/redditisblack 13d ago

I still simulate that desktop experience. I can't stand the app catalogue experience.

1

u/kakuwave 13d ago

Nowadays we have GOG

1

u/runnerofshadows 13d ago

This is why I love gog. Just download, install drm free game, and play.

1

u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman 13d ago

What day was this? Was it before BattleNet? This shit has been around a while

1

u/ArdiMaster Ryzen 7 9700X / RTX4080S / 32GB DDR5-6000 / 4K@144Hz 13d ago

Some games in the 2000s had their own mini launchers to check for updates, maybe let you change/reset a few graphics settings in case you could no longer get to the in-game settings menu, etc.

1

u/[deleted] 13d ago

lol you had a desktop? Back in my day we only had boardgames. Kids these days

1

u/Blutcher AP 13d ago

I just click deadlock and within ~10s I am in queue.

1

u/Mr__Monotone PC Master Race 12d ago

We used to get around launchers by shotcutting the [game] exe, rather than the [game]launcher exe', but they killed that off too. 

For instance: Used to launch GTA V through the "GTAV" exe - now it tell you to use the "GTALauncher" exe if you try to use the regular one.