i think there is definitely a Rockstar Problem in gaming right now (maybe always), with various dudes (white dudes) being elevated to Lead Singers essentially or even Brand Faces, maybelline-style, where there’s this mystique around the Cliffy Bs and Ken Levines and so on that leads to facilitation of what is touted by (white male late-twenties/early thirties) nerd culture consumerists as that particular person’s “vision”, as if each designer was a Warhol or a Hirst basically overseeing labor and then being solely credited with “creation”.  And I think the nerd men in the comment threads of Kotaku (where I worked for a while) are eager to broadcast devotion to the cause, to brand loyalty, for exactly the same reason their hated nemeses “the jocks” will punch a man in a soccer riot for wearing the wrong colored scarf.  i mean it’s bro culture.  we call it nerd culture but it isn’t; it’s just armchair sportball hooliganism.

– Eliza Gauge