Quoting TheDarkKnight2008,
I would suggest against talking sense in this topic polynomial. Esp. after people are saying that:
Amazon.com, WHICH HAS IT'S OWN DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SERVICE, is not competition to Steam.
Direct2drive is not competition.
Gamersgate is not competition.
Gogamer.com, WHICH HAS IT'S OWN DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SERVICE, is not competition to Steam.
Gamestop.com ALSO HAS IT'S OWN DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SERVICE and sells steamworks too.
At this point in the topic I think it's safe to call these people Stardock fanboys and anytime any news about Steam comes up expect them to trash it for no good reason at all.
What you aren't getting is this simple fact:
All the above services are indeed competition to Steam, but probably only for that one game.
Customer Z buys Super Duper Game X on GamerGate which requires Steam. Customer Z thus installs Steam because he has to, to run his game. Oh look, I can buy all my games here on Steam, I don't need GamerGate anymore.
Gee, GG made one sale but will never see another dime from Customer Z since they will now buy all their games on Steam directly.
Why is this such a hard concept for you to understand?
Stardock sees this and knows that long term it would kill their business sending it straight to Steam. Thus they are trying to stand up to Steam and not send their customers there by selling Steam required games.
Pretty simple really.