The industry's treatment of Colin for a fucking dad joke was a disgrace and an embarrassment.
This was just way over the top and a watershed moment I believe. It was such a flippant little satirical piss take out of the generalisation as a whole. I can't blieve it almost ruins a mans career.
On topic, the main problem, I think is the move to freelancer crowd sourcing content. Nowadays it's too easy to sign up, have a basic test submission then get on the books for $20 an article of 600 words for a lot of these sites. For transparency, this doesn't apply only to certain sites but a lot of others as well. You have a lot of people who don't care about the subject matter who:
1. want to get a publishing cred for a major online outlet
2. don't really want to talk about games, so conjure up a story around a very basic political fallacy and then basically use it as an outlet to self fellate themselves and illustrate to everyone how they can see these deeper meanings and can read the 'obvious' subtext. They are purely self massaging - look at clever me - pieces, that ironically have the deduction and base interpetation of a juvenile
3. over indulge personalities and celebrities that what they're doing and creating is really profound art. And basically turns into an ass kissing piece with no actual words around technical proficiency or skillset
4. try to convince everyone that playing games is so deep and they can legitimise every game as a meta commentary on social and political issues in the real world. Did you know Left 4 Dead was actually inspired by Blood in the Water in the Olympics of 1956, for example? The creator's haven't said that but this is what I see - and let's face it I'm right.......
I've made no secret that I think
sophnar0747
actually writes decent write ups of games (as well) but she is most well known for being the voice of opposition against the poison that is currently in the positions of power and privilege in games coverage. I think the current climate just diminishes a lot of good writers out there who's only way to eb relevant is to give an opinion on these opinions - e.g. the Quartering can make an entire career about reporting what the latest feud is. And you know what, it's funny and cathartic to see this play out and point out hypocrisy but damn, where is the actual gaming news?