Did they make sure to get permission from payment processors before implementing this?

He's presenting information to his audience, where his audience is.

If somebody didn't realize it was almost certainly going to run poorly the second it was revealed to use UE5, I wouldn't even know what to say to them.

Journalists in general have lost an unbelievable amount of credibility, and games bloggers are the bottom of the barrel.

Do your mental health a favor and stop devoting attention to this.

I wanted to play this, but not enough to interact with their launcher and Denuvo.

I migrated the day before yesterday. A company can only feed you hot logs, straight from the factory, for so many years before you tire of pretending the taste is acceptable.

The potential legislation would be specific to the EU, but that doesn't really matter; this market is large enough that it would directly affect other markets. Either the games are patched for all territories or others will make the EU-specific build available. One option generates positive press, the other negative, and any difference in cost would be negligible.

There's also the argument of preserving art.

From a Steam review:

The game was advertised as having 40 new levels, which at first glance is sounds engaging and interesting, until you find out most of those levels are programmer/beta/alpha stages. It's not entirely new content, but rather going through iterations until you arrive at the level as it is today. While interesting, it does feel disingenuous to advertise this as a new level. When I hear braid has a new level, I think "There's one more puzzle piece", but that's not the case. You are not rewarded with anything in game, but instead receive some occasionally insightful commentary. In total, there are around 14 actual, new puzzles.

Takes less than a minute to fill out. If you're a citizen of the EU, please take a few seconds and sign this.

As a consumer, I don't care about this. Even if Valve's cut were lower, the prices would remain the same. I don't get a cheaper game, the publisher just gets a higher cut, so it doesn't directly benefit me.

I'm sure there are many who share that sentiment. I tend to forget games even exist if they're Epic exclusive.