I have some hope left for the community after discovering r/patientgamers. It's encouraging to see that not everyone is buying into the overpriced AAA bug-infested pre-order crap these days.

Oh yeah. The reason AAA gaming is so shit right now, full of nickle and dimming everywhere, is because we have allowed it over the years.

It's the same with the internet in general.
We allowed ourselves to get fucked, accepting every little "it's a tiny change, it's for the better" with nothing more than a tiny moan.

We gave these companies our data, our money, and our time, and let them free to control the markets as they see fit.
Why shouldn't they think we are gullible and easy to manipulate into defending their greed?

As someone who enjoys games and loves to discuss them, it's really disappointing what so many gamers are like. I like to call them "capital-G gamers" to differentiate them from those who simply enjoy games as a hobby.

Capital-G gamers are the ones who do stuff like send death threats to people who gave their favourite game a bad review. They're the ones who will review bomb a game because the game includes the "political" gender (i.e., women). They're also the ones who will ardently defend toxic practices like lootboxes. That one probably isn't the same individuals as the other examples -- the point being that capital-G gamers are a diverse group that can largely be summed up by one character trait: toxic.