I am waiting to see what happens, since we're not yet at the 1st of January (it's for 2024, not 2023 - sorry for forgetting to point it out)

This is about games that check with Steam when they start to see if you're authorized to launch them, even though it's not the game itself that needs anything from Steam, and Steam is just the DRM layer.

Steam says they will stop supporting the Steam Launcher for Windows 7, so does that mean only the application frontend stuff (the store, downloading of games you bought and so on) or does it also include the components used by games with Steam as DRM to check if you're authorized to run them?

I suspect it's the latter (since Windows 7 is now all of 5% or so of the installed base and the legislation about digital purchases is crap so they're not forced to refund your for removing your access to the games you bought, so they could get away with it), but hope it's only the former.

It would be hilarious (in a near insane wierdly laughing kind of way) if I had to use a pirate hacked steam DLL to play my own games from Steam.