Why I Refuse to Install Anything But Steam (Even for Free Games)

Let's be honest: the PC "Master Race" has a dirty little secret. It's not the price of GPUs, and it's not the bad console ports. It is the absolute, unmitigated disaster that is our desktop background.

It used to be simple. You bought a game, you installed it, you played it. Then came Steam, and for a while, we grumbled about DRM, until we realized that Gabe Newell was actually building a digital utopia. But today? Today, PC gaming feels less like a hobby and more like managing a chaotic folder of corporate spyware.

I'm drawing a line in the sand. Call me a Valve fanboy, call me stubborn, call me an idiot for passing up free copies of AAA titles. But I am done.
If it isn't on Steam, it doesn't exist on my PC. Here is why I refuse to participate in the "Launcher Wars" and why you should probably uninstall the Epic Games Store right now.

The "Free Game" Bribe: Why I Don't Bite

Let's address the elephant in the room immediately. Every Thursday, the Epic Games Store (EGS) offers free games. Some of them are indie gems; some are massive blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced or DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT.

"But it's free!" the internet screams. "Why do you hate free stuff?".
I don't hate free stuff. I hate bribes.

Epic's strategy since day one hasn't been to build a better service; it has been to weaponize their Fortnite war chest to hold games hostage. When they pay for exclusivity deals (keeping games like Metro Exodus or FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE off Steam for a year) they aren't competing. They are artificially fragmenting the market. When you install EGS for that free game, you are validating a business model that says, "We don't need features, community forums, or user reviews. We just need to buy your compliance.".

I value my user experience more than saving $20 on a game I'll probably play for 30 minutes and then forget.

Feature Parity? It’s Not Even Close

A common claim among Steam opponents is that "Steam holds a monopoly". Technically, yes, they have the majority market share. But there is a difference between a monopoly held by force and a monopoly held by competence. Steam is a platform. The others are just stores.

When I launch a game on Steam, I get:

• Steam Input: Native controller support for almost any peripheral without needing third-party tools like DS4Windows.
• Steam Workshop: One-click mod installation.
• Community Hubs: Guides, artwork, and forums to troubleshoot issues.
• Remote Play Together: Streaming local co-op games to friends.
• User Reviews: An actual metric of whether a game is broken (something other launchers hide to protect publisher sales).

When I launch the Xbox App on PC, accessing game files for modding is often a restricted, clunky mess compared to Steam's open folder structure. When I launch the EA App, it frequently forgets I own the game entirely. When I open Battle.net, I'm assaulted by ads for skins I don't want.

Steam feels like a library. The competitors feel like a vending machine in a dark alley.

The "Matryoshka Doll" of DRM

Nothing boils my blood quite like buying a game on Steam, clicking "Play" and watching another launcher open up. I'm looking at you, Ubisoft and EA. We have reached a point of absurdity where buying Far Cry 6 or The Sims 4 on Steam is just purchasing a shortcut to launch Ubisoft Connect or the EA App. It is a launcher within a launcher. This "Matryoshka Doll" approach to Digital Rights Management serves zero benefit to the consumer.

It adds:

1. Load times: Waiting for two clients to update and sync.
2. System instability: More background processes eating your RAM.
3. Login fatigue: "Oh, your session expired". I just want to play Assassin's Creed, why do I need to remember a password I made in 2014?

If a publisher doesn't trust Steam's DRM enough to sell their game natively, they shouldn't sell it on the platform. But they do, because they know that's where the customers are. They want the Steam sales visibility but refuse to let go of their data-harvesting proprietary launchers.

The Linux and Steam Deck Factor

Since the release of the Steam Deck, the gap has widened from a crack to a canyon. Valve has single-handedly made Linux gaming viable through Proton. They have poured millions of dollars into ensuring Windows games run on open-source software. What have the other launchers done?

• Epic: Tim Sweeney has actively tweeted skepticism about Linux gaming, and getting EGS to run on a Deck requires a workaround (Heroic Launcher) that, while impressive, shouldn't be necessary.
• Activision/Blizzard: Their anti-cheat systems frequently break Linux compatibility, treating legitimate Steam Deck users like hackers.
• Game Pass: Microsoft still hasn't offered a native way to play Game Pass titles on the Deck without streaming.

If you care about the future of open platforms and handheld PC gaming, Valve is the only company advocating for you. The others are actively fighting against the hardware you bought.

Bloatware & Privacy Concerns

Let’s talk about system hygiene. Every extra launcher you install is another background process running at startup. It is another auto-updater pinging a server. It is another potential security vulnerability.

The Riot Games launcher (for Valorant and League of Legends) installs a kernel-level anti-cheat (Vanguard) that runs from the moment you boot your PC, effectively giving Tencent root access to your machine 24/7.

The 2K Launcher was added retroactively to games like Bioshock and XCOM, causing such massive performance drops that fans revolted, eventually forcing the publisher to remove it from several titles years later.

Why should we tolerate software that makes our hardware run worse? Keeping my system "Steam Only" keeps my registry clean, my startup times fast, and my background processes minimal.

Vote With Your Wallet

Competition is only good if the competitors actually compete on product quality. Epic, EA, and Ubisoft aren't trying to build a better launcher than Steam. They are trying to build a walled garden to trap you in. They are trying to force you to use their inferior software by holding games hostage. I refuse to reward that behavior.

If a game is exclusive to the Epic Store, I will wait a year. If it never comes to Steam, I will never play it. There are too many incredible games released every day to waste time wrestling with a launcher that takes five minutes to load my library.

I am a PC gamer. I built my rig for freedom, performance, and convenience.
And right now, the only way to protect those three things is to refuse to install anything but Steam.