Project Ascension started as a community discussion on social bookmarking website Reddit in April, when users complained that they were tired of having many different game launcher ecosystems, such as Steam, Origin, GOG and uPlay. Instead, users wished they had a way to buy and download new games, add-ons and game mods from a single place. Interest in the project became so big that the project garnered its own subreddit section, where work began.
On Friday 3 July, Project Ascension released a new video showing what the user interface of the new open source game launcher will look like. Similar to Steam, the new game launcher will enable users to sign in with their Facebook or Google+ social media accounts, so that they can share their activities with friends. When the project first started on Reddit, the said they wanted to make an open source game launcher as they were annoyed with Steam's monopoly over PC gaming, which requires users to use the launcher to download all games, thus deterring game piracy.
There was also controversy over a move by Steam to allow mod makers to charge a price for the items they created, an initiative quickly withdrawn. However, Project Ascension has clarified that they do not want to challenge any existing game launchers.
PC gaming has been really surging over the past few years and it's seen the rise of multiple game clients, from Origin to Uplay to GOG Galaxy, in addition to existing clients like GamersGate and Steam. Well, a new UI dubbed Project Ascension is hoping to create a unified client experience for PC gamers. Project Ascension is an open-source project, so anyone can join in and help contribute to its growth. I doubt this will be released as a perfectly functioning piece of software because I can only imagine the logistical nightmare of trying to collate all the different library algorithms together into one clean UI, but it's an ambitious project nonetheless.
