What does the launcher do with regard to the operation of the game that cannot be done within the actual game itself? Is it due to a technical limitation or simply there for the convenience of the players? Are there alternatives to such methods of starting the execution of games?
Minecraft is special. The launcher sets up a bunch of Java stuff and other game configurations. And it downloads updates and handles authentication. Technically you don’t need it, but it makes it a little easier for the developers and the users. There are also third party launchers with additional functionality like downloading mods.
Other games often pretend they need that stuff when in reality they just want some more tracking that is not in the game itself.
Technically you don’t need it, but it makes it a little easier for the developers and the users.
For that matter, if you poke around in some games’ files, you can find the actual game.exe and launch it directly from there, bypassing the launcher. You just bypass the authentication and compatibility checking as well.
This also works with any Unity game which prefers to launch through a launcher.
If it’s an online game, like an MMO, they might put your account on timeout if you keep playing some outdated version of the game, though.
I’m honestly surprised you can even connect to an MMO with an out-of-date client. On the few I’ve played, at least, a version mismatch is an automatic refusal to connect.
I’ve had Black Desert letting me play a bit with an outdated version (I didn’t know there were updates, I hadn’t used the launcher for a while) but it gave my account a time out of 10 days after my play session.
I was also surprised it didn’t just go “Nope, update first!” immediately, I kind of expected that would be the case if I didn’t use the launcher.
That, my friends, is also how you play games from the epic store. And how to bypass steam as well.
Doesn’t work with every game, though. Some have DRM that depends on the launcher and/or authentication.
Obviously not every game. Multiplay games won’t work with it. And yes anything that inherently depends on the launcher. The vast majority of games it does work though.
It feels like a lot of people forget or don’t realize that pc games are just files in a folder. Epic and Steam basically present you with shortcut icons to those exe files.
Multiplay games won’t work with it
that’s not actually a guarantee: BG3 has multiplayer and works just fine without the launcher. as do plenty of others.
--skip-launcherin the launch options on Steam, for anyone who doesn’t know already
Managing updates, versions, mods, and settings can be done from a launcher instead of the game itself and it’s often easier that way. If you wanted to adjust mods in-game you’d need to restart the game for changes to take effect.
Before Steam became the universal launcher, lots of games had their own. Minecraft isn’t a Steam game so it comes with its own launcher.
The one big advantage I see with it is that you can have multiple versions of Minecraft installed at once, and launch whichever you like.
Other than a handful of games where it does literally nothing but force you to sign in to something (such as Rockstar’s Social Club shit or the Xbox Live for Windows thing from years past) most of the ones I see having a launcher just for the one game are ones that let you adjust settings before starting, choose a renderer version to use (Vulkan, DX11, or DX12, etc), or, like as is with Minecraft, allows you to have a safe modded version kept separate from your vanilla game or to manage saves.
You can also, in most cases, bypass those launchers by just launching the preferred executable in the game’s installation directory.
With minecraft, it allows you to select from different versions and modes of the game and set up your account.
It’s very annoying to self-update without a separate updater (Especially on Windows).
Another reason would be that it’s good to have some functionality separated, like authentication and mod installation.
specific games like Minecraft I think it’s nessicary, other games such as call of duty which insists on having one launcher manage all game installs I don’t think is.
Imagine trying to handle all the different minecraft installs from the main screen, you would need to launch Java, load a Minecraft game, load a profile, close the game, open the game with the new profile settings and then hope it launches. This setup is very helpful, but I agree most games it is not helpful at all
Allow you to set graphics preferences before launching a game, so you don’t end up with a tiny 480p sized window on a 4K screen during an unskippable (and unrepeatable) first-launch cutscene; or the reverse, you only see the 1920x1080 (or smaller) cutout of the center of a 3840x2160 image.
I hate when games launch directly into a cutscene. Let me change my graphics, turn on subtitles, change the audio, etc.
I think the biggest thing is convenience. It’s a lot easier for the launcher to do some handshakes and check/update to current patch. Other way is client opening, client closing, patch applied, client opens yet again, that type of deal
If this is peeving you by the way, you can use multimc to create a shortcut, even to join a server or world directly to skip the title screen entirely
Not sure about Minecraft, but sometimes the launcher is simply there to make configuration, startup options, parameters, profile selection, etc. a smoother experience for the user. You can do this kind of stuff without a dedicated launcher, but some software publishers prefer to divide things up this way.
It’s a dumb analogy, but I kind of think of it like restaurants. Some restaurants have a full wait staff with a maitre d, some have walk-up counter, some have a kiosk with a screen, etc.
Sometimes updates require a game to be restarted. With a launcher it never needs to REstart, it will be started fresh afterwards anyway.
I’ve noticed Genshin Impact on Android (which doesn’t have a launcher) regularly needs to restart after updates, while the Windows version (which does have a launcher) never requires in-game updates nor restarts.It’s also in general a good place to centralise account management (esp. if parts of the game would need to be reloaded if another account is logged in!)
Lastly, although this is more of a side-effect, but it gives a good place to shows recent news/posts of the company about their game to players, such as when there’ll be downtime, in a way that’s practically impossible for the players to miss.
