Well, for a vast amount of games, it is... 

When you consider that EA games can no longer be bought on Steam and other games being tied to their respective clients, it still doesn't stop the fact that there are other channels out there selling their own games.

Claiming piracy is still exactly the same as before Steam came about, with Steam apparently being the "only" one just comes off as silly and absurd. 

Also have you ever thought as to why devs go to Steam and not say the super friendly, totally not clsoing other studios down known as EA?.

This.

Those poor pirates. I'm playing a violin using my second set of arms.

And I consider EA pedantic for doing the opposite of what they should be doing. Basically, if you don't like one channel, you ought to find an alternative for it. When there are none, it really irritates the people who liked disc only games. 

And let's be honest. Only one thing has happened since Steam came to the market. It has murdered any form of installations directly from the disc. 

As for why they go to Steam, I am not saying they shouldn't, but those devs should offer the game in their own launcher or a disc only install or if they fear piracy, DirectDrive, which is my main option. 

Now you're calling them minor and including disc based games?. You know the vast majority of games on PC these days are digital now right?.

Actually it's the progress of digital games that has killed the disc, not Steam. If you hoenstly think that discs are to be the primary emdia for the enxt hudnred years then you're quite frankly out of your mind. Digital media was always going to take over one way or another. Blaming discs on PC being killed solely on Steam is just as silly for a completely different argument. 

Yeah I'm going to have to say no to that idea, because if every dev went down that route then we'd have thousands upon thousands of launchers. Which has clearly been made evident that not many want that future, hence why we have multiple clients already that act as a hub to launch all of your games. If you want to lhave hundreds of icons scattered across your desktop, then you can always go for GoG, or hell, you can still use Steam and tell each game installation to slap an icon on your desktop. 

Discs aren't coming back in full swing. piracy still existed when disc based PC games were around btw. Direct drives fill up and then you ened to buy another, then another etc. This idea of bringing the disc sotrage based concept back isn't going to defeat all piracy and quell Steam. You need actual willing competition to step up their stores and practices, but piracy will still exist because it's existed for hundreds of years. The mere thought of trying to defeat it in one swoop is but a child's dream. 

I didn't say minor a single time.

Otherwise, I would have said disc installs are the future. I didn't. I only believe if people want a game only and not a client, they should be able to get it. Not everyone is big on Steam.

What part of "I hate Steam and don't want to use them but want games only they have" are you not understanding? PC is becoming a weird, digital only version of the console market and that pisses me off. 

If not through launchers then all devs should offer their games through direct downloads and pack their media there... 

Piracy might continue, but alternatives would cripple it since the growth in clients already allow former crackers to install stuff. Some people pirated because there was no distribution on their market.