no one has claimed an "incredible expense" though. That's simply been blown out of proportion by people who want to defend the practice of being forced to repurchase the game. It's not about the expense. The game was supposed to have free updates. The itch.io was left with no future updeated while a new updated version is now on steam. If the developer truly cared about his original developers and is only claiming he can't give the game for free on steam due to keys. Why not simply release the updated game for itch.io customers???? That's where all of this falls apart. Even buckshot roulette when releasing on steam still gave itch.io free updates of the game.
If he had given itch.io buyers the free update on itch then this would all make perfect sense. However he didn't. That's where this falls apart.