It is annoying how every PC game company tries to be a social network and persistent advertising daemon. But a launcher is not necessary to keep an app updated. Look at Chrome -- you install it, and it stays up to date. Blizzard could do that for their games and Epic could do that for their games, but they want extra money from putting ads in a launcher. (Actually, they seem to always be "house ads", so they aren't really making money, they're saving money. But at a Fortune 500, saving money is basically the same as making money.)

In-game chat could be XMPP or a more modern alternative, too, and then you wouldn't need a separate IM client for each ecosystem.

Finally, I don't think anyone really dislikes the app stores themselves. They are annoyed that they have to pay a 30% tax. If it were 3%, I doubt anyone would be complaining. Apple took a big gamble by being as restrictive as they are -- if they win, they get free money for doing nothing; if they lose, they get $0. I think history will show that they lose; app developers have caught on. But, I could be wrong.