David

It's hilarious how it's required to play games. It wouldn't work for me for a day so I couldn't use any of the games I owned. Why? Because their servers were down or taking a dump or sometihng. Of course, then there's the whole requiring an internet connection even if you're playing an offline game... Not a huge fan of theirs.

I thought the developer chose whether to have an always online requirement, not Steam.

Yes, but Steam is the vehicle used to enforce that and most other anti-piracy requirements, and it does a damn poor job of it.