ZZZ is now available on Steam. Existing players can link their accounts so that progress is preserved. This is big news for me mainly because my current circumstances make Steam cards way easier to pay for game stuff with than pretty much anything else. YMM, of course, vary, and there doesn't really seem to be any other pressing reason to switch from the HoYoPlay app to Steam unless you're just a big-time library completist.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

From what I've seen it still uses the Hoyoplay launcher, so I think the Steam integration is basically just being able to accept steambux instead of requiring you to give your CC deets to Hoyo directly.

Which, I mean, that's a good thing! I'm just old-man-grumbly about ever fukkin game insisting on its own launcher so they can shove ads at you, grumble grumble grr etc.

--sofaspud
--

>Which, I mean, that's a good thing! I'm just old-man-grumbly about
>ever fukkin game insisting on its own launcher so they can shove ads
>at you, grumble grumble grr etc.

I don't think I've ever noticed any ads in HoYoPlay, apart from the fact that the splash screen is arguably an ad for the game itself.

Anyway, yes, the Steam version does call up that splash, but you no longer need to maintain an independent HYP instance on your system--unless you need it to aggregate more than one of the publisher's games, I suppose. I only play ZZZ, so I don't have that particular use case to contend with.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I also play Star Rail, so there's that for me.

Admittedly Hoyo's launcher is less annoying than, for example, Hypergryph's, which started off well behaved and then decided without asking that I needed icons for whatever game they're shilling that week. Still not as bad as Origin's launcher, I guess, but the nerves, it grates.

NCSoft rolled out their own launcher, because, y'know, it was too difficult to leave well enough alone (you were gonna kill it anyway, couldn't you have spared the effort? srsly). Cryptic (STO and the Other Superhero MMO) jumped to the Arc launcher for a bit and then I guess rolled their own? but you can still use Arc if you're a masochist? I haven't checked back in in a few years.

Also there's the part where all of them insist they need admin rights on my computer to run and I have trust issues, thanks Sony. :D

--sofaspud
--I have opinions about launchers and I should probably just lie back and accept the inevitable, bah

>Also there's the part where all of them insist they need admin rights
>on my computer to run and I have trust issues, thanks Sony. :D

Yeah, I'm not sure why they do that. I guess it's because they need it to write to disk when they update the games they're in front of, but, I mean, Steam doesn't ask every single time it starts...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Steam only needs admin rights to install, and gives itself control over the folder where your library lives -- so any future updates/installs/etc can just Work.

Arguably Steam also does it wrong because it installs a background service and thus doesn't need your permission any more after that is up and running, but Steam also has been trustworthy and is up front about said service, whereas Ghu only knows what the latest version of Installer X From Outer Space is doing. I'd be a lot more comfortable with it if it only asked for admin when an update was pending, rather than "hey, I'm starting up, gimme admin gimme gimme gimme".

(Having had to de-DRM my machine after a silent install of Denuvo started causing everything to crash, I'm in the once-burned-twice-shy category)

--sofaspud
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