Reading about the ongoing harassment campaign against Sweet Baby Inc. and seeing hundreds of angry gamers under each tweet that condemns these horrible attacks, I can't help but keep asking myself: how much of the AAA video game industry actually relies on these groups of vile gamer people to keep their businesses afloat? Would the sales actually drop significantly if all these conservative gamers around the world suddenly stopped buying big expensive video games? Is it possible that at some point these companies would need the money from the worst people just to keep making something that would be unsustainable otherwise?
And even with big indie hits, how much of these huge profits come from the people you would rather not want to play your game? People who would aggressively bend your game's narrative or politics to fit their hostile and dangerous ideas.
I know that I'm probably exaggerating the impact these gamers are capable of, and my questions come from not knowing things, rather than trying to be smart about it, but after seeing so much of gamer bullshit on the internet during these past years, and all the industry layoffs, and indie studios closing down, and the general lack of money to fund indie games — it all feels like a bubble to me nowadays. All these "industry standards" that maybe have never been sustainable.
