For all those who post about how launching a game with the steam client makes it a "steam exclusive" and don't understand that the steam client is a bundle of fundamental technologies and is entirely divorced from Steam, the store:
Why this is even more notable is that this explicitly launches STEAMVR, not OpenVR which is a version of SteamVR (still made by Valve) that is "SteamVR without needing Steam." Instead, they literally launch SteamVR from the game. This is because a huge portion of valve's revenue intake from the last several years went into creating things like SteamVR which no other company in PC gaming has a realistic multi-headset alternative.
Why this is even more notable is that this explicitly launches STEAMVR, not OpenVR which is a version of SteamVR (still made by Valve) that is "SteamVR without needing Steam." Instead, they literally launch SteamVR from the game. This is because a huge portion of valve's revenue intake from the last several years went into creating things like SteamVR which no other company in PC gaming has a realistic multi-headset alternative.