We've chewed this topic to death, but it's always interesting to know how others see you. And The New York Times' Seth Schiesel comes up with a rather solid analogy to describe the backlash to the parade of dross we saw in Nintendo's E3 presser (and, to a lesser extent, others.)
Call it nerd rage. Like loyalists of a once-partisan politician who tacks toward the center later in an election cycle, old-school gamers are coming to terms with the ramifications of their favorite's newfound popularity. Though they have long craved mainstream respectability for video games, players sometimes resent the concessions their champion must make to attract mainstream adherents.
I think we all get why the industry is doing this; I think we all understand that we're talking about publicly traded corporations, who must show growth and not just profitability; I think we can see how it ties into the survival of the consoles and publishers we patronize, and how it affects their ability to give us what we really want. And I think we can all agree we wouldn't be caught dead playing candy-coated shit like Wii Music. In lawyer's parlance, we can stipulate to all of that.
But there's one description of "me" to which I won't:
"In the popular imagination, a gamer is a caffeine-fueled 26-year-old with a paunch, the local pizza place on speed dial and a hard drive full of Internet pornography."
They only got me on three of those. Plus my hard drive isn't full (duh) so really, two out of six.
As Game Studios Court the Mainstream, Old Customers Feel Marooned [The New York Times, Thanks reader Douginator]