Why is it “hardly an answer”?

Getting everything you want at any time is part of the reason why the planet’s dying. Consumerism is not sustainable. Just one example: one wants a coffee and isn’t at home. Solution today: get a single-use plasticcy paper cup of coffee with an optional packaged portion of sweetener and / or cream, a plastic stirring thingy, and a plastic lid. All that goes to waste because people were led to believe that a “paper” cup is good for the environment. It isn’t.

Sorry, it’s aggravating to see people complain about bottle lids and not seeing what the bigger problem behind is.

We created this mess and now the least bad thing in this literal pile of garbage gets labelled ‘mildly infuriating’.

You’re coming up with a sarcastic exaggeration (barrels and glasses), followed by “serious question”. So which is it now?

Anyway. How about refillable cups, travel mugs, returnable bottles? Stop buying bottled water if your tap water is fine. Get a soda maker if you like sparkling water or Spritzer. Clean up after yourselves, return or throw away bottles with the lid on.

And first and foremost: stop buying packaged and bottled sh*t at every possible occasion. Things like single-use / to-go cups or bottles shouldn’t even exist.

We all created the landfills and ocean garbage patches and now we complain about our own stupidity, unable to drink from a bottle with a lid attached to it like we’re toddlers.

If you seriously ask me for an alternative: stop creating waste. Stop complaining about your waste. And stop complaining about regulations that try to limit waste that shouldn’t even be there. Big part of the problem stems from our own laziness and consumerism. Everyone is part of the problem, nobody wants to be a part of the solution. What did you even expect?

If everyone had either stopped buying bottled beverages or cleaned up after themselves, this wouldn’t be an issue.

Also, y’all sound a little whiny. This isn’t even a first world problem.

Haven’t seen a video of any of these, did I really miss out?

I don’t defend the situation, I get along with it. Is it not possible for some people to have an issue with a product and still be able to use it?

Launchers aren’t perfect, not even Steam as the pack leader. But they’re a **minor inconvenience **.

I haven’t got a single game installed that uses nearly as few resources as all the launchers. Mass Effect LE alone is around 100 times bigger than Steam on my drive. That’s not bloatware, that’s a mini tool in comparison.

Curseforge/Overwolf takes less than 500 MB of RAM, when I launch Minecraft through it the game takes 20 times the amount.

Tell me where the problem is. If your computer can run and install the game it can do so with the launcher too. Some of us can deal with that even if it’s not a perfect situation.

Good grief just read and reflect on the first sentence of my previous post.

I don’t claim it’s not an issue and yes I can ignore it perfectly.

Compared to what amount of resources most modern games require, a launcher or store app needs a tiny fraction of that. The issue is overblown IMHO.

I agree, launchers are one superfluous piece of software that require additional resources.

Steam takes half a gig of RAM. From my 32 gigs available.

Also around 1 or 1.5 gigs on my drive. Many games take 50 to 100 gigs.

It’s a minor inconvenience. If one can’t afford one gig for a launcher how would a game be installed anyway?

Yes, just like Discord and many other apps that are useful but annoying: You take them off autostart once.

I don’t get why people would rather be angry all the time instead of just performing these five clicks once.

Again, I got to play four AAA games for the price of a movie ticket. How many lifetimes do I have to “own” these games?

I think I got my money’s worth out of the deal. Four big games for a tenner and people are still like "but you don’t really own them ". Yes, I know. It’s more like a very long rental.

I currently have 8 stores installed and 1 (in words: one of them) runs a background task: Windows/XBox services. Come again.

When playing modded games some rules of good practice don’t apply because of jank. It’s in the nature of things that aren’t designed to be modified. Specifically for my DA:I installation I count about 5 clicks and the game is launched. Compared to the hundreds of clicks in the game itself it’s a tiny inconvenience.

But to be clear once more: I never claimed launchers and game or app stores are an ideal solution, especially concerning their abundance and varying quality.

I want to play a certain game that requires a launcher, then I’ll either get that launcher or I won’t play the game.

No they don’t require admin rights at every startup. What’s wrong with your setup?

Exactly, I’ll start the game shortcut which launches the needed game store and then the game, done. None of the apps is in auto-start.

Updates are off course done via winget.

Please stop making up problems where there aren’t any. I already do acknowledge that launchers and game stores aren’t an ideal solution. But they work fine.

I paid 5€ for all three Mass Effects and another 5 for DA:Inquisition.

How long am I considered to “own” that before I can let go for good because I got my money’s worth?

I won’t ever play them a second time, so I gain nothing from games hogging my game library.

Oh thanks for the kind answer. I don’t care about Internet clout. This isn’t Reddit, I can live with 13 downvotes. :D

The only time any launcher ever had administrator-like rights is while updating. Don’t know why you would run them as admin.

Imagine how many great games people miss out on by being petty

Tl;dr

It’s not a car company. It’s a PC that when it can run a game it can run a launcher simultaneously too.