> They provide no benefit that couldn't be done a better way
This is like the famous Dropbox comment
"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem"
It's not. Complaining about something that only exists to strategically hedge against a competitior's dominance but just gets in the way at the user level is not the same as the infamous Dropbox quote.
I've used the file verification and repair feature many times. It's also a convenient place to enumerate the games I have access to so I can download them on a new PC.
Just because it has some useful features doesn't invalidate the fact that the only reason it exists to the management that's in charge of it is as a hedge against Valve. They don't care if it's a net win for their users or not until it gets so bad that people stop buying their games.
I think there's plenty of room for pessimism when it comes to the games industry. But Valve has (when not occasionally making games which, let's face it, isn't very often these days) become a business dedicated to the business to selling games. It offers a platform that has provided several innovations for usability to consumers ahead of competitors (it isn't continuously playing catchup - they're proactively investing) and it provides a relatively low barrier to entry for publishing a game in a pretty visible manner. I'm not certain if you ever lived with Gamestop and EBGames as your main source of purchasing games but it was pretty much impossible for small devs to get noticed that way - so small devs ended up posting their games on the internet (which was quite a strong limitation in terms of size) or trying to get on various ShareWare/Demo disks that'd circulate with magazines.
I'm sure this isn't the absolute best timeline, but it sure beats a land where Origin and UPlay successfully beatup Steam and we're all forced back onto walled gardens. And it seems sustainable, the second largest platform (IMO) out there is GOG which is owned and operated by CD Projekt Red - it seems like game studios see a lot of utility from owning a mostly open platform like this.
How does any of that support or deny my assertion that these per publisher launchers that you're forced to use regardless of where you bought the game only exist because large publishers hedging against their competitors?
This is like the famous Dropbox comment
"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem"