They really do though. You can't start most games without Steam running, unless you replace the Steam DLL that those games link against (but that is considered

They really do though. You can't start most games without Steam running, unless you replace the Steam DLL that those games link against (but that is considered "cracking"). They is a fraction of Steam games that don't integrate with Steam in any way and therefore can be started by running their binary, but in my experience that is not most games.