While I’m no fan of paid sponsorships holding back good games, this is untrue.
Neither nvidia nor amd block their partner devs from supporting competing tech in their games. They just won’t help them get it working, and obviously the other side won’t either, since that dev is sponsored. There are some games out there that support both, some of them even partnered.
So yes, it’s bullshit. But it’s not “literally paid” bullshit. Bethesda could have gone the extra mile, and didn’t.
AMD blocks partners from implementing DLSS. You’re probably right that it’s not paid bullshit as the payout isn’t monetary. But it’s still being blocked due to the partnership.
This is hardly the first game to do this. Jedi Survivor, RE4 have the same problem. AMD sponsored FSR2 only. The work required to implement FSR2 or DLSS is basically the same (motion data). That’s why DLSS mods were immediately available.
Since FSR2 was released not a single AMD sponsored game has DLSS added. Even games done in engines like unreal where all the dev has to do is include the plugin.