[chc]

I think it's quite possibly the only way regardless of how your product compares to Steam. Steam has huge platform lock-in as well as other inherent advantages as an incumbent monopoly. Your platform can be better in every way and people will still use Steam because that's where all their games are and where all their friends are. The history of computing is full of better products that failed to beat lock-in. See, for example, the insane lengths we've gone to keep computers compatible with the 8086 instruction set.

People also ignore that Steam built itself up on exclusives too. Heck, Valve bought Turtle Rock Software a few months before Left 4 Dead's release to get an exclusive lock on the Left 4 Dead franchise in perpetuity, then froze the original developers out. But somehow gamers are more scandalized by Epic paying developers to release on Epic's platform a few months before Steam, despite that being less predatory in every possible way.