I tried looking into this a couple of years back, and it looks like Steam has to run in the background for games that link to a library that offers Steam integr

I tried looking into this a couple of years back, and it looks like Steam has to run in the background for games that link to a library that offers Steam integration. I concluded that continuing to research a path that offered an uncertain conclusion was too much trouble, then switched to purchasing games from DRM-free vendors. The end result is saving a lot of money. Alas, that didn't correspond to a diminished amount of time spent gaming.