StingingVelvet wrote on Mar 26, 2011, 21:14:

elefunk wrote on Mar 26, 2011, 21:09:
To people who still don't like steam, sure it's an irony to a point. But to a developer using it, it's so much more than just DRM. It's a platform that makes it incredibly easy for them to release updates and dlc, track sales down to the instant, and quickly give discounts with. All that infrastructure is incredibly difficult and expensive for a developer to build from scratch, so getting it for free with Steamworks is very enticing even without the drm aspect coming up. There's also things like cloud settings and saves that help customers, which would be even more difficult to do without Steamworks.

If they didn't care about the DRM they could make Steam an optional install for online features like a few games have done in the past.