You're misrepresenting what the developer actually said lol.
He never had any intention of selling it on Epic. They reached out to him with an offer with the caveat that it would be exclusive and he turned it down because he had already promised to release it on Steam.
You don't go to a dev asking for their exclusivity then after they turn you down say you can't release it on your platform at this point.
That's not what the dev said happened though. According to him, they were clear they wanted exclusivity throughout and when he broached the subject of non-exclusivity they told him that wasn't possible at the time. They didn't say releasing the game wasn't a possibility, they said non-exclusivity wasn't possible. The dev said they were polite throughout negotiations and when it was clear they weren't going to agree parted amicably.
I get gamers hated Epic but there's no real case for demonizing them here.
Bullshit, they wanted a piece of the pie, otherwise they were going to throw the whole pie out the window, almost as if Epic games are a bunch of children.
The game was already on Steam. Epic not selling it does not equate to throwing the pie out the window.
They wanted it to either be exclusive or have nothing to do with it, so threw out the idea of it being on their platform and said "well we can't do that at this time" like some sort of king.
If you can't see that the sudden inability to host the game is on them, then you're a shill for Epic. ---