When you open the rockstar games launcher, is it saying Play or Play On Steam for you? If it's saying Play, then perhaps there's some kind of link step missing for you. If I open the rockstar games launcher and click 'Red Dead Redemption 2' the button says 'Play.' If I click that button even without Steam running, it launches RDR2/RDO. I bought RDR2/RDO directly from Rockstar Games (I didn't wait for it to come to steam). If I open Rockstar Games Launcher and click 'Grand Theft Auto V' the button says 'Play On Steam.' If I click that button while steam is open, it launches GTAV/O. That's weird you can't launch through Rockstar Games Launcer. They're both linked to my same Social Club account, but authentication to log in is different for each one. To recap, I purchased GTA through Steam (and Xbox2 in 2013, but that's not relevant). This does mean, however, that you should not (possibly cannot) purchase either GTA nor RDO twice because they get tracked by your Social Club account (though not authenticated to play by it). This said, if you purchase from steam, your Rockstar Social club can still track your progress because you link your steam account to Rockstar Social club.

They're like two separate games and are definitely two separate accounts. Steam purchase and Rockstar purchased do not share authentication.

And Steam won't even be able to track your hours played. If you buy from Rockstar, you can launch from Steam if you add it manually (so you can get F12 screen shots), but it authenticates from Rockstar, not from Steam. However, it's a different game than from Rockstar. If you buy from Steam, it authenticates from steam but can be launched from either steam or directly from Rockstar.

I can answer the second question from experience as well because I purchased Red Dead Online directly from Rockstar, not from Steam.ġ.

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