I have 8 bit armies on steam and I now have 8 bit hordes on GOG. They games are supposed to work together. Is that not possible now since I have one game on steam aond one on GOG? I hate having to keep up with so many game launchers

If you mean that things you did in one game are supposed to unlock something in the other game, then they probably won't interact automatically. But it really depends where they store their save/user data. Even if it doesen't happen automatically, though, you may be able to find the relevant file(s) from one game and put them where the other game expects to find them, and have it work that way. But I have no idea how different the Steam and GOG builds are for those games, so even if you did that, it still may not work.

That should actually make things easier here, because he would buy 8 bit armies and 8 bit hordes directly from 8 bit which probably makes them work together more easily.

The multiple launcher and storefront issue though may continue to exist. I guess that is a reason why Amazon is so big. It's also not much more than a single, unified storefront (and a delivery service).

I guess one could integrate the launcher in the app itself. It just connects to somewhere in the internet upon start and that's it. It's mostly the storefront that may look different to what one is used to be.

Maybe initially, until people are chained into the store. Then they will introduce buy units for real money, dress up you units with real money etc. This is what the whole point of the stores is, a captive market, where they can monetise everything completely without competition and with full control.

Sounds reasonable. Better to have small islands where each island has no competition on itself and full control but there is competition between the islands than having only one continent containing everything without competition and full control. I guess I would prefer that. And maybe at some point they can even stop with the in-game purchase crap. I want to play to win, not to pay to win.

I would expect any DRM-free version to work with other DRM-free versions, but yes there may be something different about the Steam release that prevents it. As HunchBluntley said, it might be possible with some tinkering... but I also don't own any of them so I can't try it.