When it comes to gaming platforms for PC it's normally a case of being forced to install the client to play the game.
Origin - https://www.origin.com
UPlay - http://uplay.ubi.com/
Origin is required to play EA games from the last few years
UPlay I'm not so sure about. Think it's required paricular games, but the same games may be available for Steam.
But maybe i'm just a fanboy?
Not at all. I don't despise Origin but compared to Steam it just doesn't feel as optimised or streamlined as it could be. Sure, it's no GFWL but it just feels like there could be room for improvement.
Then again, recently Steam has started being odd. It seems to want to update every day, then there's the software it installs when you first run a game which it also seems to want to do every single time I run said game.