The user will have to have steam running and steamvr installed.
The developers only link to the libopenvr_api library found on github and can distribute their game including this library on whatever store they like.
It's certainly not a good situation that the user still needs steam, but the games themselves can really be sold and distributed anywhere.
> It's certainly not a good situation that the user still needs steam, but the games themselves can really be sold and distributed anywhere.
Well, I don't think requiring user to have Steam equals not being tied to it. I.e. you can't release the game let's say on GOG, and require users to have Steam client to play it.
The developers only link to the libopenvr_api library found on github and can distribute their game including this library on whatever store they like.
It's certainly not a good situation that the user still needs steam, but the games themselves can really be sold and distributed anywhere.