This could be how it's been and I'm just now realizing it because I just updated my 1.1 to 1.3 with large address support.

Funny thing. I don't know if this is working as intended but when I run the TESV.exe directly it opens up the launcher, clicking play will then play the game fine but I was using the +fullproc switch and running TESV.exe directly. Is this working as intended? Regardless I had it validate the install through Steam but came up with no changes. Is this how it works now?

Not for me, TESV.exe launches straight to the game.

From Valve's perspective allowing TESV.exe to run independently of the launcher was a mistake that was soon corrected,

Try running TESV.exe as Administrator.

Yeah, I noticed this too. Not a really big deal, but I was accustomed to going straight into the game rather than the unneeded extra step of launching the launcher and clicking Play. I had mapped my desktop icon straight to TESV. ...not to bypass Steam as the above poster is implying, just to skip the launcher.

I'm going to reinstall SKSE tonight anyway, hopefully running through it bypasses the launcher.

Yep -- that is normal since the first stealth patch that they released they added a new security wrapper to the exe file so that it launches STEAM and the launcher -- when the game was first released it did not require STEAM running on the system if you launched using the TESV.exe so they patched it to make it require STEAM running before the game would launch.

Prior to 1.3.10, you could still run TESV.exe and go straight to the game without running the launcher (splash screen with Play/Data Files/Options). Steam still had to be running, of course.

this is kindof a pain in the rear...now, just to be safe I absolutely HAVE to write protect my skyrimprefs.ini because that buggy launcher sometimes decides I suddenly need "Low" or "High" graphic settings (depends on the angle of the moon, if I've sacrificed a goat, or if Elvis has been spotted today).

For me using the skse_loader skips the Launcher, but only if I run it as Administrator. If I'm using the Launcher I have to write-protect my INIs, including the ones in %LocalAppData%\Skyrim, as it'll just indiscriminately enable mods I want to keep disabled. I could just move them, but when you're testing a large number of mods for compatibility, it's extremely annoying. I don't know why they included this. I can see doing it if you actually open "Data Files", but it does it when you start up the Launcher.

So this is how it is now? That seems stupid. It must have a switch in the .exe as pressing play on the launcher loads the game. Any takers on this?

Just make sure steam is open before you launch the game, then running tesv.exe will go straight into the game. If steam is not running and logged in, it will instead start steam and then load the launcher, like you are seeing.