Everything else is an attempt to stay the primary shopfront. Sure you can sell your game and give away steam keys - but you can't sell it for a lower price than on Steam, and we still want you to encourage your users to come to steam and buy things. We will give you free matchmaking - just not for players who have bought on another platform, so if players buy on another platform they can't play with their friends. This is just a way to stay default, not some sort of charity.
Yet somehow they have convinced lots of gamers that they should get c25% of all transactions for offering very little value and that that's a good deal (taking payments, serving games, having refunds(!) and adding a chat panel isn't big and complicated in 2026).
They are like everyone else, abusing network effects to achieve excess profits, unnecessarily taking £12 from a £40 game sale just so that Gabe can get another yacht (despite already having 4). I don't see why this is needed? If the market was efficient and this wasn't down to monopoly power and network effects, the fees would equalise, the £40 game can drop to £35 so people get cash back in their pockets, while the developers still get more money, and epic's store and steam would STILL be a gravy train. But they aren't the good guys - if they have a chance to cement their power or get an extra few bucks by being anti-consumer they will.