> Those keys are often sold on other platforms that take their own cut, which sometimes amount to the same as Steam's (though platforms like Itch.io and Humble Bundle generally take much less).

And at the end of the day, devs are still at the mercy of Steam; you can't just sell your game through keys, because Steam controls key generation and doesn't let you do that. Again per the article:

> Steam also imposes some limits on key generation to prevent developers from essentially piggybacking off of Steam's services while solely selling games directly to consumers elsewhere.

That's why I think the anger re: the Epic Store misses some of the point. Epic's move into the store space almost incontrovertibly caused Steam to lower their take rate: two days after the Epic Store launch, Steam dropped their cut of revenue for games that sold over certain revenue thresholds. If Epic is successful, I imagine Steam's pricing will continue to become more competitive, which is better for devs and better for keeping smaller studios alive and independent.