While I can respect the right of developers to simply make games for the joy of making games, I find this to be rather arrogant. Not in the sense that a rich man might believe himself more worthy than a poor man because he "earned his wealth," but rather in the sense that it proposes the thought that this person has the right to dictate what is and is not enjoyable or "worthy" in a game. It causes me to wonder why a person would make such claims in the first place. Perhaps they are fed up with being ignored for games they view as being "less interesting." I don't know. What I do know is this: they are destroying themselves.
A friend of mine once shared with me a bit of wisdom that I shall not soon forget: your politics are boring. Not in the sense that your political opinion is, literally, boring, but that you will never get people to join your way of thinking by making them feel like you think you are better than they are on moral grounds, even if you actually are (yes, typically a subjective thing, I know, but whether subjective or not is irrelevant in the argument). You will only come off as grandstanding, arrogant and holier-than-thou, and in the end will just exhaust your audience rather than get them to be concerned with whatever you want to convince them of.
The way this connects with video games is pretty simple. The industry is as much a political construct as a social one. You might disagree with EA's policies, but at the end of the day they will always have better public relations, a larger budget and more lobbyists. Their business methods, focused more on quantity than quality, do not necessarily create better games, only more money. This is where, if you want to change the structure of the industry, you have to beat them. If you want to get people to respect your opinion and why what you think is better for video games going forward should be accepted, you need to be among them.
If you find yourself shouting from the mountain tops that "they are all whiny, entitled brats," no one will ever give a fuck what you think. But if they find you sitting among them, just as frustrated as they are with the way EA gouges fans of sports games, or ramps up costs on downloadable content, or how much you really hated such-and-such changes made in the sequel to whatever, they will respect you. People will begin to understand your opinion because they can connect to you.
I, for one, find independent games often tend to be some of the best, most imaginative and enjoyable gaming experiences for their cost. I feel I get more out of paying $15 for an indie game that I would give a three-star rating than I would from a big-budget blockbuster with the same rating based almost purely on the fact that it didn't cost me as much. Alternatively, a great indie game for the same price is a treasure, but so can a similarly great big-budget game be. If you want to convince me that your opinion matters, you need to convince me you're not an arrogant snob who thinks you're better than me just because I happen to enjoy some games that are made on larger budgets. Yes, maybe I am a bit too "mainstream," but the fact remains that I play the games I like, and while some of the things in those games might frustrate me, overall I still like them and am passionate about them and will defend them from people that I feel unjustly belittle them, because to belittle them makes me feel that you also belittle me as well.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is that video games are art, but art is exactly what art has been for thousands of years: it is both an aesthetic thing intended to convey the makers creativity, and it is a means of making a living. Some people value the creating more than making a living off of it, and that's fine, but some people are willing to pay for something they like, and that's fine too. We should never exclude anyone from the community because we like different things.
Except for Angry Birds. I hate that game.
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