Will you use Playnite in the future?
My preferred method for organizing my games from Steam, Epic, GOG, itch.io, Humble, IG, DRM-free.
The random game picker is my favorite feature. It was actually the reason why I chose Playnite over GOG.
But there is so much more.
Thanks for opening this topic 💪💪💪
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So, it still requires all those clients installed, right?
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Yes, the clients have to be installed because no passwords are stored within the app for security reasons. Playnite does not login to your account and thus can not start a game on its own.
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Then why even use it in the first place? I mean if I already have them all installed then I can just start the games directly through them or if I want them in one place then just link to them in steam so u see all ur games in ur steam library.
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So that you don't have to launch each launcher first, then the game.
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So that you don't have to memorize where each game is, before starting up the launcher.
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So that you easily notice whether, or where, you own a certain game, as opposed to checking each platform when buying or trading.
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Most of the games I play are on Steam, so maybe some of the other clients are different and don't work the same, but I never launch games from the clients. I just install the game and then all the installed games are in my Windows start menu. I simply open the start menu and click the game I want to play. The client starts automatically when I click on the game.
Even if some of the clients don't start automatically, I don't see how it would be any easier to start this client and then launch the game from there rather than just starting the client that the game is listed under in the start menu. Even old DOS games that don't use a client, I will just create a shortcut to the game and put it in the start menu with my other games.
Also, I often want to run other programs with a game and I can put that shortcut next to the game in the start menu so I remember to launch it with the game. I play with the arrow keys and a lot of games won't let you rebind keys or they won't allow you to use some of the keys around the arrow keys, so I use autohotkey to create a script to rebind the keyboard and I launch that before starting the game. Or I might need to use Xpadder to rebind my controller. When I played Resident Evil I wanted a program that skipped the cut scene everytime you walk through a door because it gets extremely annoying. Sometimes I might need Flawless Widescreen to get the game to run in the aspect ratio I want. It's nice to have all the shortcuts to launch these things right next to the game when I launch it so I remember and it's easy.
I just have a text file will all the games I own in it. The games are listed under each client so I know where they are. I only need to refer to that list when I am looking for a new game to play and once it is installed, I just use the start menu. I am still using Windows 7 with a real start menu, I'm not sure how usable the Windows 10 and 11 start menus are.
If I want to see where I own a game, I just use control+F and search the text file for the name of the game.
I personally see no use for a program like this and it just seems like another client to run on top of the others that already need to be ran. Especially if you are playing a game you own on Steam that requires Uplay. Then you are running this client on top of the Steam client on top of Uplay. I prefer to keep my computer clean and run as few programs as necessary.
Edit: Having a text file with all the games I own is nice as well because I often write notes next to the games. I sometimes describe what type of game it is to make it easier when I am looking for a new game to play. I highlight games that I am really interested in playing sooner than others. I might leave notes about other games to play before or after if it is part of a series. If I have already played a game, I often leave notes about how to get the game to work correctly, mods, or just my thoughts about the game. I move played games into a different section and rank them all against eachother based on how much I enjoyed playing the game. A lot of game series do not list the games in order so you don't know what order they go in. I can list them in order and put the year next to them.
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Exactly, plus on top of all that, you add one more unneeded Launcher: TBH we are already cursing at devs when they include their own launcher on top of Steam for example, let alone adding one more to that, for example uPlay + Steam + Playnite.
Idea as an idea is good, but if it could run those games without having to Launch the original Launcher (Steam, Gog, uPlay, Epic, Origin.....) it would be perfect.
What this one does is basically fancy App User Interface with game shortcuts in it. Dont want to sound like a hater, but you can pretty much do this with Start Menu, at no extra resources consumption.
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That's not all it is, though. The variety of plugins you can install like HLTB, IsThereAnyDeal, batch DLC finder, library management and custom filtering, customization, custom tagging, quick search your games anywhere outside the app, detailed activity...etc. I especially like filtering games by how long to beat times that fit my schedule for the month. Steam launcher can't do that.
I mean notepad is fine and dandy, but sometimes you'll want a more versatile and convenient text editor.
You could potentially set it up to launch games without a launcher, by the way, but that's only for DRM-free games. Launching launchers is the solution to DRMs (in the background, you'll almost never see them unless you perform actions like installing and uninstalling games)
I can attribute my platform blindness to this launcher. I don't HAVE to have the game on Steam to enjoy it. Games just work the same, regardless of how good or bad the original launcher is, or what new changes I dislike a launcher has seen. Playing any game from any source is basically the same experience (you click the play button and the game starts), so I pick up the best deals and free games regardless of launcher and don't really "get mad" at bundles that offer non-Steam keys.
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Games just work the same, regardless of how good or bad the original launcher is, or what new changes I dislike a launcher has seen.
There are different game versions between platforms occasionally and some developers / publishers treat platforms differently when it comes to how quickly and often they update their games (and sometimes those differences also come from the platforms having different quality assurance processes when it comes to game updates / patches).
But other than that I would agree with your post with maybe the tiny exception that I do understand when people care about their profile including achievements and so on, that they would prefer to have all their games in one place and Steam is the established and most functional one in that regard. But I also dislike the platform hate you get to see here and elsehwere all the time. If you don't like it, don't use / buy it, but please shut up about it! ^^
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Oh, I totally understand why achievement hunters would care about the platform. I'm not one, so it's all the same to me. I was simply relaying my own personal experience. I do have most of my games on Steam anyway because it usually has the best deals, and would choose Steam given the choice because it's less likely to go belly up among other reasons, but if there is a better deal elsewhere or if another platform is the only deal, I'll gladly take it and won't feel bad about it.
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Going to seriously look into it. I haven't been satisfied with the Steam launcher since they "revamped" it and the Ubisoft client keeps crashing so if it can solve that already, that would be awesome.
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pretty cool, but so far I only have games on steam and I'm intended in keeping it that way
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i can also back up your opinion. i had it installed a couple years ago and thought it was pretty neat how it just aggregated all my games into one library. despite that, i never really used it much nor reinstalled it when i switched over to win10. i'm one of those weirdos that for no good reason refuses to play anything that isn't on steam. i don't know, achievement collecting, or just the fact that i already own too many steam games that i wanna play through to bother playing on anything else, i don't know.
for me, steam launcher is perfect for my needs. for anyone who wants to play games from different launchers and thinks switching between them is a hassle, i wholeheartedly think that playnite is excellent at what it does.
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I've installed it a couple of months ago. Couldn't care less which launcher I use to run my games from, so it seemed ideal. If memory serves, my issue with it was that it would only show installed games, so it didn't show my whole library of games I own as I had hoped
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I do not know about a few months ago, but now this is definitely not true. Almost all library integrations show owned uninstalled games
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It always showed uninstalled games, if you checked the checkbox to also import them :) Check the 12th screenshot I posted to see what you have to tick to import your whole Steam library, installed or uninstalled.
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Thanks for that, and thanks for the thread drawing my attention back to it.
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You're welcome.
I myself gave up on Playnite when it was still at 1.x or 2.x or 3.x, I don't remember. I tried it again when it was at 8.x and the experience is so much better now that I even decided to support it.
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You probably had the "installed" filter activated without knowing. If you still have it installed, try clearing filters. If that's not the case, then you may have imported games from a folder locally instead of using the Steam library import function or did not "select all" when you were importing.
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You know, that's exactly what had happened, I had my steam folder imported manually. I then google searched it and found some old threads saying it's not possible to have your uninstalled games show (probably true at the time).
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I've been using it for a good while. It's the main reason why I'm platform agnostic and wouldn't mind keys on any platform. The only reason I prefer Steam is their API (lots of websites and apps use it) and their sales. Outside that, it's all the same to me. The filters are snappy and combined with plugins (I have plugins that import Steam custom tags and apply all kinds of other useful tags), I'm able to find exactly what I want in a second and narrow down my options for my next game. There is even a plugin for global search outside of Playnite, I could basically check if I have a game on the fly.
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Do you know what the plugin is called that inputs the steam custom tags? I've been using Playnite and love it but didn't realize this was an option
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It's called "Steam Tags Importer". By custom, I mean user tags approved by Steam, not your own unapproved custom tags. You can add Steam tags to any game available on Steam, even if it's on a different platform. You may want to mess with the settings if you want all tags imported. I think it defaults to 5 tags, but all you need to do is uncheck the limit to have it import them all.
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GOG Galaxy is indeed not an option if you have a lot of games. Going to give this a try.
Edit: "Downloading metadata 34/9662" that might take a while ;)
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Just now I'm playing on my new gaming laptop which I bought as a stopgap until prices for desktop GPUs reach a level where I don't have to sell a kidney to be able to afford a decent setup.
I have seven games installed and my 500 GB NVME in my laptop is 85% full(!). So I don't need a universal launcher right now but as soon as I upgrade/build a PC with more storage capacity I'll look into Playnite as this might be the solution GOG Galaxy sadly wasn't for me.
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👀…
- language support concerns
- problems with startup options and mods
- (´･Θ･`)ooO(Concern that if the app is a key ring, there will be thieves who will go for it.Since it is open source, the bad boys will plan how to get their buddies to tamper with it so that they can suck out the input information and send it out....)
Recently, there have been cases where two-step authentication has also been breached, so we must be cautious.📝
Presumably, in that case, the user would not receive any guarantees from the various services.
However, for the rest of the world, there is still not enough information accumulated to be able to get a handle on it, so we will have to wait and see.
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I use it but only as a means to keep track of my collection. I never use it to open games but its easier when I am trying to find out if I own something.
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No, because .... For now 95% of time I play games is on Steam. And seems like I'm in a minority, but I absolutely love the new steam design. It gives me every functionality I need. Epic is there just for the free games because .. why not ... and I have around 30 games tops between Origin, UPlay and GOG ... So yeah... for now I have no need of third party software bringing it together..
Also I'm a visual person - so function has to be accompanied by attractive visuals as well. Might try this or something similar eventually, but no for now... I did try GOG galaxy.. didn't actually run much into bugs, but simply stopped using it as I realized there's no difference for me just to open steam initially.
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Playnite may not be as visually polished as GOG galaxy straight out of the box, but with some customization, it can look alright. There are tons of community-made themes and extensions that greatly improve the basic look and function.
Some examples of custom setups (The first two are what I'm using. The last one is a crazy experimental theme still in development)
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Thanks for suggestions :) The first two look fine. With custom themes it might be really great alternative
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nah, not so hard to login each time i open the app if i log into them once a month or less
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I using Playnite since looooong time.
The greater clarity and custom Covers can you find in Launchbox. (incl. awesome themes)
But hey Playnite is free.
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it support multiple accounts?
p.s. i'm habit use use my own list vg ita360 dot com
edit: oh i find this by myself
"However, since Playnite never automatically removes already imported games, you can sign-in with one account, import games, then sign-in with a different one and import again. Games from both accounts will stay imported."
Looks good to me,not support multiple account BUT it remember games import from it,very good
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I used playnite and GoG for me GoG is better (easer to use)
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Been using it since I moved laptops, previously used GOG Galaxy. I don't use it to launch anything but keeping track of various libraries when they come up is nice. I missed that there was IndieGala integration though so this thread was useful to bring that to my attention.
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"No, because..." I already have only one launcher- Steam.
And a big enough backlog to last me a lifetime.
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Now what they need to do is make a flatpak for it so I can use on steam deck
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I tried using GOG galaxy back when they added support for other libraries but quickly gave up due to how poorly it manages a large number of games, but if you say this one can cope with thousands of games without dying I might give it a try. I don't really have much use for something like this as far as Steam goes but it could be useful for cross checking libraries in a somewhat agile way cos I often find myself doubting if it's worth buying a game on sale cos I can't remember if I own it somewhere else.
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If nothing else you can just use it consolidate your non-Steam libraries.
With Playnite, cross checking whether I own a game is literally a matter of hitting a keyboard shortcut and typing in the name of the game. It takes seconds. I use an extension called QuickSearch which can bring up a search bar even if the Playnite window is out of focus.
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Yeah, that's exactly what I need to not have to go around checking like five different libraries, specially with how awfully unoptimized epic is for that kinda thing.
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Hey Axel.
Playnite doesn't struggle with tens of thousands of games with the basic theme. Custom themes can slow it down a little, at least in my experience, but I guess this varies from theme to theme.
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one thing i liked about gog galaxy that i only saw there was if i had the same game on multiple platforms (with gog connect, and the free weekly/monthly games from epic and amazon prime this happens without me buying them again) it would list the game once and just show which platforms it was on. i don't remember how it would install or launch them since i didn't end up using gog galaxy much due to it's frequent connection problems.
playnite has everything i could want other than that feature, a nicer look (didn't try any themes though), and maybe a feed of game updates and/or what my friends have been playing. still the only thing i play that's not actually through steam is minecraft, and i can just add that to steam and run everything from there, so one less thing to install by not actually running playnite. if i cared about games i have on other platforms i'd definitely be using playnite though.
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You can hide duplicates in Playnite using the DuplicateHider extension. This is what it looks like if you have a theme that supports it. I can switch between platforms just by clicking on the icon in the top right.
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What theme are you using? I would love to have this kind of visualization for duplicates (I have duplicate hider)
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This is Mythic but all of the other themes by darklinkpower have similar visualization (Mythic, Stardust, Harmony, Helium). eMixedNite and eMixedNiteMC also show platform icons but only when you mouse over a cover.
In all cases, you need to make sure that DuplicateHider's Enable UI Integration setting is checked.
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Additional clutter. I just use steam and add non-steam games when I want to organize my shit.
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Hi guys.
I want to properly introduce you to the Playnite launcher. No, I am not affiliated with the developer and I don't benefit from this thread. I just think it is that good and the developer can benefit from every exposure his launcher gets.
Due to how this forum works, all screenshots are at the bottom of this OP. I tried to name them accordingly so that it is clear what they are showing.
#Playnite Homepage, Download-Link on main page.
What is Playnite?
Playnite is a free launcher that integrates all your different game clients (and more) into just one app. No more need to start multiple game clients and no more confusion on which client you have a game. You can support the developer (yes, only one person) via Patreon, but you don't have to do this to use the launcher. The free version is not limited in any way, there is no pay to gain benefits here.
Let's get the elephant out of the room first: "Why you no use GoG Galaxy? It is the de facto standard for multi-client-launchers."
The answer is as simple as sad: GoG Galaxy is broken since alpha, doesn't include all launchers and is still a mess of a software considering how it runs on your machine.
I tested GoG Galaxy since it's first public alpha, when there was still an NDA, and gave plenty of feedback during it's development cycle via the dedicated forums. The sad reality is: It is still broken. As soon as you got a lot of Steam games, GoG Galaxy just can't handle this amount and crashes instantly a few seconds after starting.
Somewhere in the development cycle the devs just gave up on fixing the problem and literally told me: "Our client can not handle that amout of Steam games, we don't know why and implore you to not enable the Steam plugin if you own too many games." I know that someone with as many games as me is in the total minority, although I am not the only SG user who has too many Steam games for GoG Galaxy to function properly.
What clients is Playnite supporting?
It supports all the major gaming clients. Here is a simple list:
If you're wondering why Playstation and Xbox are included, yes, Playnite can also import your game data (owned, played etc.) for consoles. AFAIK you can even start your console games via Playnite if you install Playnite on a USB Stick, plug that into your console and run Playnite, but I have not tried that yet.
In addition to those major game clients, Playnite also supports the integrations of other libraries. For a full list, see screenshots at the bottom.
Is Playnite safe? Does it store my account passwords?
You have to authenticate yourself with the other clients. That means, you push a button within Playnite, the corresponding login window of the targeted client opens, you log in there, so outside of Playnite, and Playnite recognizes you're logged into that service. So no passwords are stored within Playnite, you keep all your 2FA safety and I would deem it as safe.
How does your game library work? How does it look? Are there filters?
You can either show your games library for a specific client or the aggregated library for all clients. The games can be grouped by different filters like "platform". "genre", "release year", "developer" and so on. They also can be sorted by "Date Added", "Time Played", "Name" and so on.
Your library can be shown in "Details View", where you see many informations about a specific game including a short description and a background image, in "Grid View" where you only see "cover/package shots", so to say, and as "List View".
For all those views you yourself are in total control what details aka metadata is displayed or left out.
The metadata for all these filter settings is downloaded when you import a library or a new game and you can even choose from which sources this metadata will be downloaded. You can always download missing metadata at a later date if you choose to do so.
How does Playnite look?
Out of the box, Playnite uses a basic blue and orange theme, which is fast and does its job. Playnite runs in desktop mode and fullscreen mode and uses the basic theme for both.
If you don't like how Playnite looks, you can download custom themes for both modes. And yes, you can use custom theme A for desktop mode and custom theme B for fullscreen mode.
Want your library to look like an Xbox library in desktop mode and like a PS5 library in fullscreen mode? Sure, go ahead.
You can download new themes from within Playnite itself, from the Playnite forum or even create your own one.
What about your friends?
Yes, Steam chat is available via a simple button click. At the moment chat is limited to Steam friends or I might be too blind to find the chat options for other clients.
Extras: Nice to have
How long to beat is integrated in Playnite if you so want to. Available via a single button click from within your library or as a separate tab on the left side of your client. You can configure How long to beat to your liking, log into it and choose to only show it for unplayed or played games or both.
There are some easy accessible statistics built within, such as the total number of all your imported games from all game clients you have connected to Playnite. It also shows on a quick glance how big your backlog is, your total playing time and so on.
You can also see your game activities: What games did you play in the last X days (you yourself can set the number for X via a slider), on what days did you start what game, for how long, what genres did you primarily play the last X days, on what platform and so on.
So much. That is all, isn't it?
No, it is not.
You can have several plugins installed, for example a plugin to export your game library into an .html-file or another file format, check for new localizations in your preferred language, backup your save data to a folder of your liking, check for mods for your games directly on Nexus mods and many more.
You can even run your own scripts.
Edit: As ThalesOwens mentioned, there is a built in "random game picker" that starts a random game from the library of your installed games.
There is even support for Emulators. Playnite can automatically scan your HDD for installed emulators or lists where you can download them. You have full integration for all kinds of Emulators - Atari 2600, Commodore Amiga, NES, you name it - within Playnite and have full control over what is shown for those emulators and what is hidden.
With Playnite, you really only need one launcher for the complete gaming extravaganza.
All this is very slow and taxing on the machine, isn't it?
It's not. The client was taking up 355 MB of RAM while I took the screenshots and with the default theme and is blistering fast, even with my amount of games.
The folder on my HDD is 17 GB big, tho.
I wholeheartedly can say that Playnite really is everything GoG Galaxy tried to be and so, SO much more. It is the only launcher you ever need and is the software every game collector with a big or even huge gaming library needs in his life.
On to the screenshots:
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