Rockstar Games Launcher update ideas/concept

[Nikhilmao]

Rockstar Games have a great selection of games, it's just a shame that on PC the Rockstar Games Launcher (RGL) is extremely underwhelming. Here are some ideas I thought up for an update that would personally make me switch over to using the RGL launcher to buy and play their games. For people who are unaware, this is what the current RGL looks like:

 

As for what an update could look like...:

Home Page

If there is an announcement for a new game or remaster, the launcher could show a video or picture of it upon login. 

The Homepage would include your (select) games for quick launch purposes and maybe include post game summaries like Steam does which shows your screenshots and what achievements you earned in that play session.

 

The homepage would also show online friends and what they are playing, as well as a bite sized Newswire feed that automatically updates when a new post is posted (maybe include an optional notification system where you receive desktop notifications for news). Next to the newswire feed could be the same Social Club activity feed which shows people screenshots, achievement milestones, new games and shared music.

 

 

The Launcher would ideally include options to change which "modules" are shown on the homepage so you can hide these if you wish to.

 

Profile and Achievements

As for the player profile, Rockstar can implement customization and levelling for your profile. Each achievement you unlock could give you XP towards your profile and also reward you with a profile picture related to that specific game and achievement. (For example, finishing the Love Fist missions in GTA VC could unlock their faces as avatars)

 

Finishing a game's story or content (both single player and GTAO/RDO DLC's) could also reward you with backgrounds to put on your profile. The profile would show your avatar, level, background, recently played games and activity feed from Social club as well as your crew. Upon levelling your account, you could receive a Rockstar Related profile picture or background.

 

Now that Rockstar are removing some modes in GTAO to decrease waiting times for lobbies, they could add incentives to play these modes by adding weekly rotating objectives that give a smaller amount of profile XP for participating in these limited 2X money or any events in GTAO (like how ubisoft does it)

 

Game Library

There would be a tab on the top that shows your current full game library and clicking on a game would bring up a menu, similar to steam which includes larger artworks, achievements, time played, friends currently playing and recent screenshots. The library could also be sorted like how steam does it:

 

One thing I hope they could bring back are the game manuals for each game, as nowadays those are omitted with some physical purchases. The Launcher could also include interactive maps that could (optionally) show which collectibles have been collected like how GTAV does it through the checklist page:

 

Each game page would include a checklist of completion or general stats about your game, which the Social club pages already do for GTAV and RDR2.

 

Social Aspects

Currently there is no friends system in the RGL, but can be ported from the existing Social Club. They can add a chat and revamp the current Social Club overlay in GTAO which also allows invites to be sent. The Overlay would also include other information like achievements and current events for the game you are playing. 

There could also be a Crew Page, where it would show the Social Club activity page from all members of the crew, special events that the admins of the crews can plan, and also have a Crew level, which is determined by adding all the profile levels of the members together. 

 

Store

This is more self explanatory, but they can also include the Rockstar warehouse (now named Rockstar Store) in the Launcher so people can buy merch or bundles alongside a new game.

 

 

I'm sure with their resources they could pull an update to RGL like this off. It would benefit them because some people would be more inclined to purchase from their own store, meaning they get 100% of the profit of the games, rather than the cut down profits that Steam or Epic Games take. Since the Trilogy Definitive Edition is releasing first on RGL, I think it's about time Rockstar modernize their launcher so that the experience at least catching up to the other PC launchers. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Nikhilmao