Hallelujah. I don't know why so many companies went down this route, particularly when it's not the likes of Ubisoft or whatnot with their own desire to half-ass the attempt at making their own Steam. My guess for its removal is to better support Steam Deck, perhaps?
Keeps users in their wallet garden. Marketers love shoving shit in users faces whenever they launch the game. Inside the game it's bad for. To advertise whatever other garbage there is, on their launcher they try to grab your attention for their other crap
But see, that's the thing. They're just as capable of putting those ads in game too. I definitely would have more visibility on the ads just at the title screen than I would on a launcher I'm clicking through as fast as humanly possible.
We need a term for a Freudian slip caused by mobile autocorrect. Because "wallet garden" is extremely accurate, even if it's not the intended word choice.
Some games include launchers for practical reasons. Launchers allow you to change settings before having the game up, for example, which can be nice. They also sometimes can do mod management, though this is less common. Paradox does mod management through the launcher, for an example of that.
Usually the launchers suck though and only slow things down, but you can also usually use an argument to skip them.
A lot of times I just want to make a quick change for later without actually having to fire up the game. Even if I'm not interested in playing it anytime soon.
Weird, I know, but I have ADHD so if I don't do something the moment an idea pops into my head, within seconds I forget and the thought is lost forever. It's so bad that I'll often finish a sentence without having any idea how or why I started it.
The game can collect data, if that's what they're after.
My theory is that it's all about advertising. It's another point of contact with the consumer, and another opportunity to make sure every new release is presented to every potential buyer.