And if they do, PC gaming will be better off when developers are keeping more of the revenue share.
Steam is giving everybody a chance to publish their small game, this increased both the amount of good and bad games on PC. The problem isn't that there are only bad aset flips on Steam. The problem is that there are too many good games out there.
Take 2018, I've bought:
Into the Breach
Cuphead (Title from 2017)
Celeste
Vermintide 2
Ghost of a Tale (Title from 2017)
BattleTech
Mutant Year Zero
Divinity OS2 (2017)
Frostpunk
Battlefleet Gorhic Armada 2 (beta in 2018, release this January)
Those are just the specific games I like and I even had to skip some that I'm interested in like Surviving Mars, Frozen Synapse 2, Return of the Obra Dinn, Pillars of Eternity 2 or Phantom Doctrine! Because no way, I can play everything I want to. I already have to choose, especially if you factor in all the fantastic AAA games that came out last year like RE7, God of War (yes I also have consoles), Forza Horizon 4, Red Dead 2, Odyssey, Spiderman, MHW, FC5 etc.
My point is:
The EGS will have to open up, if it wants to grow. It's inevetible. Even it they, somehow magical, manage to only put on good games on their store. It will still be an over-saturation.
In the end, the EGS won't do any kind of wonders for indy devs once it opens up. If your good game can't get sales on steam, because there is to much good competition, it won't get sales on the EGS because the same kind of competition will be on there too. A better cut from nothing is still nothing. In the end only indy devs with some kind of brand recognition will be able to profit, a few lucky new ones, but the most profit will be made by publishers that are able to put some kind of marketing behind their developers. Worst case scenario: This will allow publishers to grow even bigger, put more weight into marketing, ultimately making life for true, new indy devs even harder.
Epic is using the 12% cut as honey to big publishers and those already "winning" indy devs. This doesn't mean a new golden era for indy development, the same games struggling on Steam in 2021 will struggle on the EGS in 2021, independent of their quality. We can make too many good choices atm. Take Pillars of eternity 2, I'm sure as hell it's a good game. But I had no time to play it and I'm not buying preemptively and the game is, apperently, struggeling. Which is sad!
Epics strategy here is very questionable:
Step 1: Give publishers more money, both from bribes and sales.
Step 2: Ly and make it sound like you are doing it for some kind of greater good ("We support indy devs!")
Step 3: Instead of also using honey on your future costumers, force them to come. Which lead to anger and bad PR.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit