It's one of the strangest things I've ever seen in this job, especially when you consider so many gamers spend so much of their time loathing the companies they represent. But when it comes to the actual men and women running giant video game publishers, there's a lot of love in the house.
We saw this most recently with Sony boss Kaz Hirai in the leadup to the reveal of the PS4, but it's been going on for a very long time, even back to our own, uh, special relationships with J Allard and Phil Harrison. Nintendo's executives normally come in for especially fond treatment.
There's no single, logical explanation for this gif-based Stockholm Syndrome, but Leigh Alexander over on Gamasutra does a good job at singling out some of the less logical ones, which include personification, a need for "mascots" and, obviously, the fact many hardcore gaming fans are just a little bit crazy.
Cult of personality: Why do fans love video game execs? [Gamasutra]