I am with you on the loot boxes, not sure I agree on the rest. City skylines as an enormous modding community, on steam, for example.
I am OK with the 30%, because it's not a monopoly. You can use any other store, "sideload", whatever, without restrictions. I think, but I am not sure, that you could actually offer your game cheaper on other channels in parallel. But because people like the convenience of steam (which is probably one if not the best implementation of a software store) that many would pay the premium to have the game on steam.
Well, Source was the last Counter Strike game that allowed people to use custom skins. CS2 enforces sv_pure when playing on official servers, so you can't make up your own skin and use it. It sucks.
Using custom skins on official servers by modifying game files has always been forbidden since CS:GO. CS2 doesn't make it worse. Join a community server if you want to use your own skin you made up.
At one time[1] Valve even tried to ban community servers that offer custom models/skins. Though they doesn't seem to enforce it anymore.
I am OK with the 30%, because it's not a monopoly. You can use any other store, "sideload", whatever, without restrictions. I think, but I am not sure, that you could actually offer your game cheaper on other channels in parallel. But because people like the convenience of steam (which is probably one if not the best implementation of a software store) that many would pay the premium to have the game on steam.