It doesn't bother me in the least. Do you know why? Because just like golfers are the only ones reading golfing magazines, gamers (by and large) are the only ones to read sites like Kotaku, or RPS, or IGN. And these types of articles obviously achieve their goal - generate tons of ad traffic.
Gamers go to these sites and either smugly agree with the author that gamers are whiny and entitled or smugly judge the website in question for treating their target customers like trash. Both groups them go all over the Internet, pasting links of this article smugly in every communication niche across the gamut and direct a flood of traffic the site's way. The site gets a hundred times more hits for this flame article than it would for a legitimate, well-researched review and they know it. They want to make more money and they want people to visit their site to see possibly even more articles (and get more money), so they don't care. And if they can pat themselves on the back by telling themselves they are "telling it how it is and if Jane/Joe Gamer can't handle it then we're just too edgy for them," then that's an added sense of smugness for the website as well.
Frankly, I don't blame them. Gamers have shown that they will reward this type of behavior time and time again, regardless of who is perpetuating it. Might as well cash in. Because gamers are, as a culture, undeniably drawn to turf wars and tribe mentality like moths to the flame. We don't want a carefully balanced argument and dialogue, we want a grudge death match, played out for the world at large to see.
We don't want to see that companies across the entire software industry are grappling with legal and economic concepts of software as a service, we instead want to trash a developer who puts in DRM (just as an example). We like our battle lines clear, our targets identified and our objectives outlined for us. We collectively handle our consumer image conflicts like we would your most basic FPS - we encourage open, destructive conflict and we avoid anything more complex than consistently doing the most amount of damage in the shortest possible time frames.
I love gamers. I love being a gamer. But the industry treats us the way it does because there is a lot of money to be made by doing so... and because we line up in droves to make them more money anytime they do. Just think of that the next time you click a Twitter post linking to the latest Saarkesian train wreck post or the latest Kotaku article attacking gamer entitlement. I guarantee you these people make far more money from people who disagree with everything they say than they do from people who think even half their points are valid.
Brilliantly said. The entire mud-slinging fest benefits only one group; the people who make blogs and articles on it and cash in on the clickbait.
No side has any sort of moral high ground on the other. While some people are measured individuals who are willing to work towards their goals in a reasonable way, both groups are utterly overrun with trolls and self-righteous fanatics who call the freaking SWAT on people who burst their ideological bubble. The only people who truly benefit here are the writers who cash in with clickbait ''controversies'' that trump anything coming from Washington DC in terms of sheer pettyness and irrelevance.
Here's one thing I always wondered; a person thinks a Youtube is a hack (let's take Anita for argument's sake). They not only disagree with their premise, but find their arguments laughably stupid, badly researched, made in bad faith, the works. They then proceed to post links to said Youtube video for all to see, complete with a detailled post saying how wrong the Youtuber (Anita in this case) is.
Except, that last step is completely unproductive in an almost comical way. By giving said person publicity, you're making sure more people will see it. By denouncing it as horrible trash, you attract people who will see it, either to confirm your claims, provide a counter-argument or just be fascinated on how much of a trainwreck the video is. Both GG and anti-GG don't realize that, the more they talk about their sworn enemies, the more they ensure these enemies can sustain themselves and keep on doing whatever it is that infuriates the other side so much. It's a self-perpetuating vicious cycle that poisons any attempt to discuss said topics (mysoginy in games and ethics in journalism) while pundits make their cash off the back of this absurdly ridiculous mud-slinging circus.
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