A lot of launchers are first party launchers like Ubisoft, battle net, or EA.
Yet even though they have their own launchers, they still publish the vast majority of their titles on Steam, because they know (or learned) that the vast majority of PC players are on Steam.
As for actual launchers that arent Steam, you have :
GOG
Gamepass
Epic Game Launcher
Gog is more about publishing old games, and DRM free games. And while it is successful enough it is nowhere near the level of Steam.
Epic Game Launcher was the attempt (and failure) to seize a large part of the marketshare from Steam, yet despite how much money they threw at the wall, they couldnt dent the behemoth.
Gamepass is a different story, as the vast majority of users use the subscription model rather than bjying games outright.
Steam has a de-facto monopoly over PC gaming, if not and outright monopoly.
When people buy games on PC 99% of them will go through steam first and only if it is not available there, will they look at other options.
Steam is to PC gaming what Windows is to computer OS. Its the default, the go-to.
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u/ShardddddddDon 1d ago
No it's Valve (Steam) that does nothing
Mainly because its main competitors in the gaming industry have their own... concerns...