Like most reactionaries, gamers take real phenomenon and then extrapolate the worst possible conclusions. There are real instances of magazines and websites colluding with game developers to ensure better coverage, but that comes with the territory anyway. All the ads are for games, so how would it look to publish "horrible game 2/10" next to a two page spread advertising the same game?
The actual two things gamers focus on are: the supposed inability of journalists to properly play the games they cover and the supposed socially liberal progressive agenda being pushed. Both of these have been extrapolated by gamers as some sort of organized plot to make all video games into simplistic, slow, story driven games containing academic writing addressing concepts like homophobia or feminism. Since they're mostly reactionary young white men, anything involving story or concepts not addressed to them personally is interpreted as confrontational. At least, that's what g*mers were upset about like 7 years ago. I think nowadays they expanded their horizons to hate typical sorts of journalists as well.
There was a big deal about how political themes do not belong in games, which is a frankly bizarre stance for them to take. Go ask them some of their favorite games and one of them will inevitably say Final Fantasy VII or Half-Life 2, two games about being a terrorist against an evil energy corporation and leading an uprising against a dictatorship respectively.
Like most reactionaries, gamers take real phenomenon and then extrapolate the worst possible conclusions. There are real instances of magazines and websites colluding with game developers to ensure better coverage, but that comes with the territory anyway. All the ads are for games, so how would it look to publish "horrible game 2/10" next to a two page spread advertising the same game?
The actual two things gamers focus on are: the supposed inability of journalists to properly play the games they cover and the supposed socially liberal progressive agenda being pushed. Both of these have been extrapolated by gamers as some sort of organized plot to make all video games into simplistic, slow, story driven games containing academic writing addressing concepts like homophobia or feminism. Since they're mostly reactionary young white men, anything involving story or concepts not addressed to them personally is interpreted as confrontational. At least, that's what g*mers were upset about like 7 years ago. I think nowadays they expanded their horizons to hate typical sorts of journalists as well.
There was a big deal about how political themes do not belong in games, which is a frankly bizarre stance for them to take. Go ask them some of their favorite games and one of them will inevitably say Final Fantasy VII or Half-Life 2, two games about being a terrorist against an evil energy corporation and leading an uprising against a dictatorship respectively.
In short, g*mers are racist and misogynist.