I would say the issue is not removing the games from Steam but rather providing a service that is not good enough in those regions.
Piracy is a service issue, as games are more expensive / harder to obtain due to lack of payment methods AND the added value of having the legit game in the launcher is not significant (added stuff like achivements, cloud saves, easy mod support, etc.).
If EGS were on par, the risk of piracy would be minimized.
Aside the store itself not being as feature rich as Steam there are several issues at once:
-
With the 30% in-store cut Steam offers the care-free route, neither consumers nor developers/publishers need to be conscious of additional fees. Within Steam the in-store price is what it is.
-
EGS on the other hand with its 12% ensured that they will never be able/willing to expand the reach to any ways of payments that make the cut financially unfeasible. To not limit the audience developers/publishers would need to keep additional fees in mind and price their games accordingly. Consumers need to keep additional fees in mind while browsing the EGS to not be surprised by them later on. Third party sellers of keys and store credits also want their cuts etc.
- EGS is plainly not available and actively blocked in specific regions at all (like China). This means
games exclusive to EGS essentially don't exist there except through piracy means.
- All this combined means
EGS is limiting the exposure exclusive games will ever get, whole regions are excluded, for the remainder the costs are higher, and the diverse channels that could/would promote the game are excluded as well. It's EGS or nothing.
So in the current state (especially the insistence on the 12% cut, and that being financially feasible)
EGS can never truly be on par with Steam, neither for consumers nor the developers/publishers.
