What’s your point though? Every one of Epic’s exclusivity deals is done with the consent of the game publisher. Does it matter who makes the offer? Do we even know that there aren’t cases of publishers reaching out to Epic?
You risk losing the audience when the other outlets’ reviews are up days before the game release while yours will be published a week after the game release unless really cutting corners or reviewing a short game.
Games reach Game Pass via deals similar to those offered by Epic. Microsoft pay the publisher a fixed amount, so if it is believed that it beats the proceeds from the projected sales for the given period, there’s no reason not to agree to it. In other words, it’s all about how much they would offer and how long it would have been since the game release.
The Game Awards also treated it like a game. I think it’s giving it special treatment. Some DLCs like Freedom Cry were available without owning the base game, but that’s not even the case here.
Valve had no issue with it. They went through with the release until the huge backlash when even the most loyal communities, like /r/pcmasterrace, were suddenly all about getting rid of Gabe from the sub banner and building a new client to replace Steam (1, 2). All of Bethesda’s most recent games were getting heavily review bombed on Steam and elsewhere. These things forced Valve to backtrack.
Apart from the forums, Epic offer all those things and take only 12%. Microsoft offer most of those things and also take 12%.
Hosting a forums platform costs almost nothing. Moderating them like Valve, expecting the game creators to do the work and doing an extremely poor job, with each big game hub filled with toxicity and people earning points for racism and other forms of bigotry, is certainly not worth 18%.