Slaughter is from them intentionally shifting traffic away from indies to feed more towards AAA.

10 dollars spent on an indie "should" equal 10 dollars spent on a AAA game....and steam has functioned like that for a long time, looking at just the games popularity and pushing more traffic to the ones that sell more (so AAA naturally were getting more coverage, since they naturally were selling more out of the gate).

What is happening now is that is changing. Suddenly 10 dollars on a AAA is worth FAR more to steam than 10 dollars on an indie....because steam wants those AAA games to stick around and perform better (so they are artificially shifting more traffic to the AAA companies).

The little less revenue they make by doing that is made up for by keeping more AAA companies at the table (which is worth it for steam, slaughtering the performance of some indies and shifting a PORTION of that money into AAA companies is a business choice they see worthwhile).

Steam knows indies don't have anywhere else to seriously go....and if it drives some indies out of business? It doesn't really matter, they are a dime a dozen....no individual one really that important. Sacrificing a few lambs to feed the lion.