Looks like PC gamers are going to have to make room for yet another launcher. Rockstar Games, the creator of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption games have announced and launched its own launcher for the PC platform.
Wait! Before you toss up your hands and give up, let’s take look at this.
Right out the gate, Rockstar has advertised that their launcher will include Cloud Saves and Automatic Updates. It feels odd that this needs to be pointed out, especially since these features have been commonplace for a while now. While downloading and installing the launcher will grant you with a free copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for a limited time, that is.
I’ve downloaded and installed the launcher, which allowed me to score the free game. In addition to this are several other tickets from Rockstar’s past catalog, including L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition, Max Payne 3: The Complete Edition, Bully: Scholarship Edition, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto V. Sadly, if you already own these games on Steam, they won’t appear under Rockstar’s launcher. I checked. Which does make sense, seeing how you didn’t purchase them via their store.
I didn’t expect to see Rockstar Games get into the launcher scene, but now that they have what does mean for their existing games on Steam? Will Rockstar yank those games off of the platform and make their launcher the exclusive place to purchase and download its titles? Nothing has been announced as of yet, however, this definitely could be an option in the future. As such, we’ve reached out to Rockstar Games to see what their plans are with this.
Though this does make me wonder about the time. Why now? Does this mean that Rockstar Games is going to make some sort of announcement regarding the Red Dead Redemption games coming to PC? They very well could he and now that they have their own storefront, either or both of those titles could be exclusive to their storefront and launcher.
I said in my “A Look Back: The State Of PC Gaming In 2018” that the PC storefront “wars” would be heating up in 2019 and so far it’s been exactly that. The Epic Game Store, Discord’s now dead digital storefront and now, Rockstar Games entry. Yes, it’s one more launcher but at this point, we should just accept that this won’t be changing anytime soon.
