1. Games get updates far more often than they did back in the 90s and 00s. If your game is installed, it’s pushed to you automatically. If it’s not installed, the next time you install it, you’ll be on the latest version.
2. Installing a game is passive compared to inserting the next disc, fishing out the serial key, etc. You just click download and walk away for 5 minutes. Likewise, as games are very large these days, you can easily uninstall and reinstall games on limited drive space very easily from the same UI.
3. Cloud saves. They’re always nice to have. You can rig up something like it if you’ve got the networking and scripting know-how, but once again, it’s just passive through a launcher like Steam.
4. There’s a lot to be said about the longevity of network multiplayer games that allow you to self host and port forward, but Steam and its ilk mean that the average person never has to learn how to do that ever, and it’s more secure for the end users for Steam to take on the burden of facilitating the connection.
5. With things like Steam’s Big Picture Mode, you can navigate an entire library and jump from game to game with nothing but a controller.
6. Launching a game via Proton, whether in Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, or Steam, is just easier and more automatic than not using a launcher.

All that said, there’s a lot of value to GOG for never requiring the launcher (but they make an annoying exception for network multiplayer games).

Ease of use, manages updates and just keeps it all together.

My first PC games you had to exit windows and load the game thru DOS, it meant we learned how computers actually worked, but it was a hassle.

I never liked Steam when it was first released, it was problematic, slowed down my machine and caused me frustration.

Now it’s different. I agree with Gene Newell that piracy is a service issue, I haven’t pirated any games since steam started to fill its library with other non Valve games that I wanted.

I also appreciate the additional features that it brings like the community features and guides and managing updates for me.

It’s not perfect, nothing is, buy I prefer it to managing my own files and updates.

I played PC games since the early 90s, so I am well familiar with how things used to be before steam. And it was fine. I was hesitant to use steam at first, because like you say, I simply didn’t understand the point of it. Sometime after Valve released the orange box, that ended up being the first thing I bought on steam. And back then, some of the first things that I noticed about it was the ease of installing games, and the friends list that let me talk to and play games with my friends. I ended up getting really into team fortress 2, largely because I could play with people I knew, and we could even chat outside the game easily. It was easy to buy other games that these same friends were playing, and then enjoy a different game with them.

I got used to steam and it began to feel convenient, and at the same time, physical media started dying off. Steam let me easily install and uninstall any of my games whenever I wanted. I didn’t have to keep track of any physical media. I don’t have any of my old PC games from the 90s anymore. I have no idea where there went or how I lost them. But they are just gone. However, I still have every game I’ve ever bought on steam.

I’m not a heavy gamer anymore. If I see something I want, it’s easy to just put it on my wishlist and wait until it goes on sale at a price I think is reasonable. If I feel bored, I might open up my full list of games and browse for something to install. My game saves get backed up to the cloud. My controllers just work. Everything related to the gaming experience is integrated into one place, and I like that, it makes it easy. And for the most part, steam kind of just stays out of my way.

I too prefer to buy from GoG, but I often add my GoG games to be launched through Steam as non-Steam games so I can take advantage of features like Proton and Steam Input.

If I want to take advantage of certain features Steam only offers to games you buy through them, I will buy through Steam instead of GoG. Usually when I do this it’s for multiplayer or save file syncing reasons.

Steam features you can use with non-Steam games:

• provides SteamInput which allows me to use any game controller in any game with a lot of configuration options. It’s the best tool for that purpose I’ve ever seen.
• provides Proton for playing Windows games on Linux (and I do 99% of my gaming on Linux these days)
• provides VR headset drivers and tools for using different VR headsets with games not designed for them
• provides a TV and controller optimized interface (“Big Picture” mode)

Steam features exclusive to Steam games:

• updates games automatically
• backs up my saves and syncs them across devices
• provides multiplayer server infrastructure making it easy to play with friends
• provides modding infrastructure, although not all games use it
• provides tools for managing which version of a game you have installed

All of my systems are Linux, launching Windows games on Linux is not trivial, Steam takes away almost all of that complication. It also provides an excellent ten foot interface for me to use on my TV and buy/install/launch games from my couch without any hassle. Speaking of controller usage, Steam provides excellent support to remap controllers even if a game doesn’t support it, and provide amazing features at that (for example multiple layers, gyroscopic mouse)

Games getting updated automatically is a great feature, I still remember having to download patches and applying them one by one after a fresh install. Similarly Steam also provides a workshop that allows you to install mods and keep them synced across different systems automatically.

Finally, the convenience of cloud saves for someone with multiple systems or who uninstalls a game and reinstalls it later is not easy to achieve without a launcher (I still have a saves folder backed up somewhere from before).

Besides all of that Achievement and other social features are important for some people. And for some games being able to easily play online with friends is amazing (if you’re not old enough to know what GameSpy is you don’t know what it was back then), although I don’t play too many online games so this one is not that important for me, but when I need that feature it is very handy.

In short there are many reasons, but if you’re playing old single-player games with mouse+keyboard on only one windows PC, then none of my reasons apply to you. Still I would argue that buying games on steam is easier than pirating them, so there’s the convenience factor still (e.g. at a friend’s house and they mention a game, open my phone, and in 5 min with a very intuitive flow I have the game downloading on my home PC so when I come back it’s ready to play).

I mean steam adds a convenient way to keep your games up to date instead of having to manually patch them. I also was on the anti-steam bandwagon for the longest time until I finally gave in and decided to buy Modern Warfare 2 in 2010. I ended up repurchasing the rest of the Call of Duty games because it was so convenient not needing the discs and not having to locate patches.

Steam is the one launcher I don’t get pissed about having to use because it has so many value add features.

Unlike epic/origin/uplay

All the talk of games ownership and preservation overlooks the fact that I can play my first steam game today, while so many of my disks have been lost to time.

And let’s not forget how much bullshit came with those disks. DRM schemes up to and including root-kits. Serial # and activation codes. And don’t forget, though you had physical media, what you actually owned was a licence.

Depending on how you make the game some launchers can make sense. You can set display options before launching the game. Back in ye olden times some games would launch by default in a set resolution which often made changing that in-game difficult as it would be off screen. Also makes your first time launching it a better experience than some low-res garbage. Also, without a platform like steam they can handle updates.

That being said, I don’t think most modern games need those functions. Graphics engines are pretty good at getting screen resolution from your os (not perfect). And platforms handle patches and updates.

Now they’re mostly there to gather metrics and shove ads in your face, and enforce drm.

I’m not a fan of Steam or any launcher really but they have some useful features like friends lists and multiplayer updates. I don’t miss the times of downloading individual patches and having to insert a disc but nowadays has its own problems like “online” requirements for singleplayer and being forced to update. Thankfully GOG exists and some devs still offer DRM free versions and that’s my priority now.

Its for DRM. The easiest way to check if you actually own the game is to have the game contantly ask whether its connected to the server. The server should have your payment info. If thats not found, your game isnt legit.

Thats why GOG is so good, their games dont have DRM. Meaning you (and pirates) have a BETTER version of the game. Let me repeat that, downloading an illegal copy gives you a better running version of the same game you mightve paid for, because it doesnt have to contantly talk to a server before the game will allow you to do anything.

When you pirate a steam game, youre also downloading a “fake” version of steam, a steam emulator. The way they break DRM for steam games doesnt remove the DRM, but it slightly reduces the issues DRM causes because the server it is communicating with is local and doesnt have to index user files. Your game just asks the steam emulator if its legit, the steam emulator doesnt check anything, it just says that whatever got checked was legit.

Updating all of my games is a huge boost. I also enjoy the sync feature as I may play the same game on my desktop, HTPC, and Steam Deck. I like GOG allowing installing without their launcher, but I still just install games through Heroic Games Launcher for the same reasons as above.

Not having a launcher is my requirement to buy a game lol

Good luck with that. I need it because I’ve fiddled with my screwdriver adjusting the cassette head position to load Scuba Diver on ZX Spectrum too many times.

On Linux, running an exe isn’t often as simple as “wine frog-fracker.exe”. It’s usually “proton PREFIX=~/steam-proton-10/ TRICKS=b DXIMPL=1.7.8 blah blah … frog-fracker.exe”

As a result, Linux gamers tend to have launchers even for hobby games they downloaded. Arcade launchers for emulated games are especially common now.

It can be convenient. You’re going to launch the games somehow, whether that’s clicking files in a folder or running a command. If you have a bunch of games it’s nice to see them neatly organized in one place with nice visual representation. Non-launcher options tend to either get unwieldy or require more customization work.

The Steam launcher does a whole bunch of other useful things, like managing saves, setting up Proton, tracking play time and achievements, connecting to friends, integrating the store. It’s not hard to see why people like the convenience.

It is annoying when it goes too far… like individual games that insist on having their own launcher.

Heroic is a nice middle ground. GoG gives you simple downloads, that you can then choose to access through Heroic.