idbeholdME: Here is what came in the info e-mail about this. I've had a Bethesda account for Rage 2 (received it as a gift from someone, box with a code, never would have bought it otherwise), so I received it:

"
We’re saying goodbye to the Bethesda.net Launcher this year. We would like to thank you for your support and assure you that all of your games are safe. If you’re not playing PC games through the Bethesda.net launcher then your work is done here. Thanks for reading! If you do have games through the Bethesda.net launcher, don’t worry. Starting in early April you’ll be able to migrate your games and Wallet to your Steam account. For more details on what this process will look like, read on.

You have plenty of time to plan and begin migrating your Bethesda.net library to your Steam account. The migration to Steam will include your game library and Wallet – meaning you will not lose anything from your Bethesda.net account. Many games will also have their saves migrated, with a few requiring some manual transfers. For games that require it, you will still use your Bethesda.net login to sign in to play. Your Bethesda.net account will not be lost and will still be accessible on our website and in-game, and we will continue supporting all Bethesda.net accounts with our future titles.
"

So yeah, nothing really changes except killing the front end. The only difference is that now it's gonna have to verify both on Steam and Bethesda, instead of just Bethesda. Basically resulting in an additional DRM layer.

BanditKeith2: plus I do bet that Bethesda.net will soon stop existing now that the launcher was killed off but thats my thought on the matter as I can see Bethesda keeping Bethesda.net up long enough to cover thier buts legally and then axe it as they kinda axed some bethesda.net factors in the past or made them optional after enough trouble and possible legal action arose if they didn't axe somethings related to it

idbeholdME: Well, the problem there is that the games that were made for it have these checks for bethesda.net built into them. If they were to kill it, they would have to remove it from all the affected games. And as that would cost money, they will most likely just keep it in zombie mode so they don't have to do anything.

The text specifically says that "For games that require it, you will still use your Bethesda.net login to sign in to play". Meaning that now you first have to go through Steam to launch it and then sign in to your Bethesda account to be able to play.

At least that's how I understand it.

idbeholdME: Got an e-mail with the same info as in the article.

But yeah, nothing really changes except killing the front end. The only difference is that now it's gonna have to verify both on Steam and Bethesda, instead of just Bethesda. Basically resulting in an additional DRM layer.

Darvond: as the Bethesda launcher was something of the cash cow

Slick_JMista: Nice. Now we wait for Origin and Uplay.

Darvond: Starting in April, the Bethesda Launcher will be no more.

This is surprises me somewhat, as the Bethesda launcher was something of the cash cow, given it served as the centeral modding hub for Todd Howard's failed attempts to turn unplayable sprawls into income generation platforms via playing players to fix their fucking problems.

Pardon, snapped a little at the end there. Did you expect the Bethesda launcher to be killed off this swiftly? What other parts do you expect to be shuttered?

Falci: So, we're in April.

Did anyone get to make the migration yet?

I don't have anything there that I don't own elsewhere, most on Steam actually, but I was expecting Arx Fatalis to magically show up in my Steam library at some point (I also own the game here anyway).