Also, nice job offending people. Sometimes it’s the only way to be effective. Also, /sarcasm tag was missing someplace where the players who got bent about this are. Sure, all the things that you listed are likely their sources of love.
What I’ve noticed – and been part of, so I damn myself as part of the subcultures that do this – is that once a small, specific group links a portion of self-identity and places great value on a specific set of things they love . Be it de-stegging, code-cracking, endless-circle ARGs or grinding on WoW, or player-run economies that require more work in Excel than I do for MONEY, re-hashes of the same FPS Halo-gameplay with nifty new weapons and art, whatever. They love it and will react if it is threatened, generating hate mail and complaints to the point where the financial supporters or potential financial supporters of something ‘game changing’ will write it off and go away instead of facing flamewars, internet protests, and other various forms of obstructionism.

To be honest, the best bet for ARGS absolutely unlike those which have already been run and gained the attention of the type of audience who loves them….
Is to create their own niche, a new name, and their own audience. Because, like ‘casual’ gaming has won the hate of all the hardcore console and PC gamers, its a misleading comparison.

There are obvious comparisons I could easily draw, between this and some of the trends in mainstream console and PC gaming, but I doubt it even needs more emphasis.

Great piece, though could’ve been a bit more antagonistic.