Ubisoft has had a rough month--of all places this CNBC article has the most comprehensive and level-headed roundup I've seen--but among all the disappointment and frustration over everything the company has done (and not done) lately, there's one thing in particular I want to point at and say "this really pisses me off and I wish you would stop it".
That thing is the company's continued bungling of my platform of choice, the PC. You can see this reflected in a bunch of ways: the fact Ubisoft have long insisted on selling their games on their own desolate shopfront, the fact they made their own PC launcher that sucks, and the way that when you can get a Ubisoft game on Steam (and the company has recently pledged to return to it), shit like this happens:
Steam is a launcher. It works. Companies like EA and Ubisoft have their own launchers that routinely do not work, or when they do, work poorly. If I buy a game in Steam and launch it in Steam to then play it in Steam, I should not have to be subjected to another launcher! I've already launched the game and want to play it there, thank you!
And yet. In a best case scenario, waiting for Steam to boot a game then having to wait for Ubisoft or EA or Rockstar or Paradox or whoever's launcher to load after it, then having to click play again just so we can play the game we already clicked play on in Steam is a pointless waste of time. At worst, like we see above (or like I've personally experienced everywhere from trying to play Star Wars Squadrons in VR to a recurring Europa Universalis IV bug that makes the game unplayable), the extra load (and introduction of extra variables where shit can go wrong) can straight up break your ability to play a game at all.
As such, I have a modest proposal. I think anyone responsible for the implementation of a launcher for their PC games should be thrown into the ocean.
