They aren’t whataboutisms because they’re explicitly about the topic of discussion. They’re evidence against your core argument because your core argument is about a particular conclusion you’ve drawn and the basis on which you’ve drawn that. As such, your usage of the term is incorrect.

Cite how Valve said that they’re helping poor little developers with Skyrim mods. Like I remember the whole thing but I don’t remember the cut valve was taking and how much was bethesda who tried to revive that shit with FO4

Sure. I’ll provide article links. Just like you did…oh wait.

https://www.gameskinny.com/news/pay-for-skyrim-mods-revenue-for-valve-and-creators-frustrates-pc-gamers/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/steam-skyrim-paid-mods/

Relevant part: “By paying for mods and supporting the people that made them, you enable those artists and creators to continue working on their mods and inspire new modders to try their hand in creating new, higher quality items and experiences.” - Valve frames their initiative as providing a way for gamers (and it’s implied, themselves) to help modders. Takes almost all the money. Classic Valve.

Most of their exclusivity deals will be giving mostly all of the money to massive corporations and the developers will see none of it.

I think the crux of this is that you are reading their advertisement (which is what it is) as them saying “literally every single developer who works with us in any capacity will directly benefit from doing so.” This is not what they are saying. They are advertising their platform, specifically towards smaller developers who are going to try and self-publish. They aren’t saying they’re going to benefit everyone equally. It’s a business. If you have a large studio that is attached to a publisher, and that publisher goes with Epic, yeah, they probably aren’t going to see any extra money from that. But they weren’t going to see any money from that anyway, regardless if their game launches on EGS or Steam. But a smaller developer or indy development studio might benefit from developing their game with Epic’s tools and might benefit from the greater split of revenue they get from the EGS. In that case, some developers might materially benefit from that. Others might not. But the point isn’t that Epic promises to help each and every developer. They’re framing themselves as a better platform for smaller, independent developers to launch on. That’s the purpose of those statements. This is fairly obvious purely by way of understanding the context in which those statements are made. You haven’t really argued that no one benefits in any way from contracting with Epic. You’ve only argued that there are some people who wouldn’t. But these are not conceptually equivalent.

Quote Sweeney all you want but he is not someone I believe at their word

Okay, cool. You can think he’s lying all you want. I would imagine that it makes your position a lot easier to maintain if you refuse to believe new information presented to you that directly undermines your argument.

Yes you are.

No, I’m not. You can criticize it for a lot of things. Their launcher is really bad compared to Steam’s. EGS has dogshit account security. The EGS fails to account for regional pricing, so it kinda sucks as a functional online store. The lack of community features also hinders user feedback to developers and the financial safety net their contracts create also kind of insulates developers from the need for bugfixes and feature updates, which means that the games on their platform are just generally shittier than they might otherwise be if released on something like Steam. These are all functional criticisms. As far as a business goes, they’re not any worse or better than Valve. They’re both just businesses and they both functionally operating in order to maximize profit. Your criticisms of Epic as a business are based almost entirely in a sentiment spoonfed to you by capital G Gamers on the internet. You hate Epic and love Valve. Not because of anything they’ve actually done that hurts you in a meaningful way. But because others hated it and you lack the mental or emotional capacity to actually think for yourself.

Just tragic.

Go outside. Touch some grass. Read a book. Talk to people with real problems.