We don't know if EA have any special deal with Valve or not though. But I wonder how long Epic can keep grabbing exclusives and build their store before Valve have to lower their cut. If Epic gain enough popularity, publishers might just go for the 88% deal without being bought by Epic.
Well Valve did change their fee structure a while back (as you well know), however I think they could go a little deeper and benefit the smaller indies in the process (maybe starting at 25% down to 18%). I don't think there's any way that they could meet Epic though, in large part because Steam is doing a lot more under the hood than EGS is doing, coupled with a vast array of more features both for developers as well as players. I posted this in the Hitman III EGS exclusive thread but I think it's worth dropping in here as well. Albeit it's a decent talk overall, being from 2019 a lot of the stuff they talk about in the early parts has now been realised in Steam so can be passed over. For me the really interesting stuff is from the last couple of speakers starting around the 23 minute mark where they get into infrastructure and emerging markets. Valve are very customer driven from both ends and it's very apparent that their focus is on platform stability and building a consistent experience on a global level regardless of where you as the player may be. I think at the end of the day, that's the big difference between Valve at Epic, Valve care about the experience for everyone, where as Epic not so much. The abject failure to launch EGS with any notable QoL features is pretty telling in that regard, as is their continued glacial efforts to bring any even a year plus on.
Frankly it kind of blows my mind that EA, Ubisoft, Epic and even GOG (though the latter has made strides of late) can't seem to fathom that if you want truly beat Steam at their own game , you've got to look at what they do for players from the QoL perspective and build on it, versus half ass it as they all have, if you actively want people to come to your store and stick around. I know some people are all 'free games!!!' but they're generally young or new to PC gaming and not burdened with a large backlog of games already. Personally if it's not either played, in my backlog, or on my wishlist for sales notifications, it was never a game I had much interest in playing in the first place.
