> Steam came in 2003, created for easy management of updates for their games over the Internet (what today would be called a “proprietary launcher”).
I call it that today and I also called it one in 2003, when it suddenly demanded to be installed and kept running to continue playing Half-Life (what today would be called "vendor lock-in").
Its even better now!
Launch a steam game to open another game launcher platform that you then create an account for and play on that game. A launcher launcher!
people on the internet were pissed about steam in 2003
not cs playerbase, which was it's foundation.