Then the plants would have no water and die.

It’s not ideal, but I’d say the reason they require equivalent pricing is, so that people don’t just use Steam as a marketing platform, while diverting all sales to their personal website where they sell the game for $X cheaper.

If there’s no money and no work to be done, the natural outcome are layoffs. What alternative is there? That the company continues to pay all the staff from the management’s pockets? That’s not exactly a great scenario for the workers either, since there’s no prospect for growth, and everyone will still be out of a job once the company inevitably fails. If you see management making bad decisions, start searching, don’t wait for the layoffs.