>The whole article seems like the author just woke up from a 15-year coma and is having trouble coming to terms with modern commerce.
Seems more like a Games Journalism article written by someone who isn't "a gamer". Which is par for the course nowadays.
I'd be hard pressed to find any PC gamer who doesn't think Steam improved upon the way things used to be done. I do know one person who is an exception but their issue isn't the gaming side of things but the fact they liked to collect boxes for the box art. Fewer games being released as a box = fewer box arts for their collection.
We could play the "no true Scotsman" game for a while, but I've yet to meet a games journalist that is less of "a gamer" than I am.
The article admits Steam improved the way things had been done before. It simply asks us to question our relationship with Steam today, if it's continuing to do real good. It wonders why so many people are still adamant Steam is a Mom & Pop shop when it's the PC gaming Wal-Mart today.
>We could play the "no true Scotsman" game for a while, but I've yet to meet a games journalist that is less of "a gamer" than I am.
I predicted this would be a response (or, similarly, "gatekeeping").
"Gamers" in the literal sense? Sure. But most people mean "gamer" as in "gaming enthusiast". There's a certain level of skill or knowledge expected of anyone calling themselves an "enthusiast". If you lack both of those things you'll find it hard for anyone to take you seriously. Just like an "artist" who is both untalented and ignorant (eg. no knowledge of common terminology, history, or popular figures) wouldn't be taken seriously as an "artist", regardless of how much time they spend on it.
Polygon infamously released 30 minutes of gameplay footage of Doom that was mocked for the player being so bad it's like they've no experience with an FPS game [0]. Polygon in general has a long track record of being ignorant of entire facets of gaming culture, to an extent that many enthusiasts say "Bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about." Their reputation for being ignorant and clickbaity wasn't earned because they're good at what they do, quite the contrary.
"Enthusiast" has no implied meaning, that I am aware of, with regards to skill or encyclopedic knowledge of/within a culture. Enthusiasm is not a profession and plenty of people are enthusiastic of things without high skill or deep knowledge, and there are so many different facets of gaming that I distrust anyone that thinks they can define a canon of skills, experiences, or knowledge that makes "a gamer". Primarily RPG gamers might have no FPS skills. FPS players might lack the deep lore and cultural touchstones of RPG culture. Neither is more nor less "a gamer", which is exactly why this is a "no true Scotsman" argument. That's just two genres of games within the hobby; we could go all night diving through the variety and depth of gaming.
Gaming is a giant spirograph of a venn diagram of interests, skills, knowledge, cultural touchstones, etc. You may be comfortable picking some very specific section of that Venn diagram for what criteria you think counts as "a gamer", but I hesitate to. I'd rather celebrate how wide and interesting the hobby can be than lock myself in an ivory tower or boy's club treehouse.
You're right that enthusiast doesn't have any dictionary definition with the implication I mentioned. So for lack of a dictionary term, allow me an analogy that also explains why it isn't a "no true scotsman" argument.
Compare game genres to musical instruments. Guitarist == FPS gamer and Pianist == RPG gamer
Both guitarists and pianists are musicians, just like RPG players and FPS players are gamers. Feel free to expand this analogy into as many genres and musical instruments as you like.
Now take someone who isn't able to play the correct notes, cannot read sheet music/tablature/any form of music notation, has no knowledge of music theory, hasn't heard of The Beatles (or whatever cultural/genre relevant artist would be the equivalent to The Beatles), but still practices for hours every day on their 8-note plastic recorder they got in 4th grade [0]. They call themselves a musician, after all they spend so much time with their hobby!
Nobody but that person and maybe their mother - being nice - would call them a musician. Is there a hard, defined line for when they'll "become a musician"? No. There is a grey line of necessary skill/knowledge that one needs to have for others to consider them a musician. Every amateur hobby has that grey line that needs to be crossed before you'll be taken seriously.
ps. The dictionary definition of "musician" only mentions "plays an instrument" and doesn't indicate any level of skill. This is the difference between "dictionary definition" and "actual usage of a word". By the dictionary's definition our untalented individual is a musician, even if nobody else would consider them one.
Isn't that exactly how commerce has worked throughout the times? You're not being robbed, you're the one who is purchasing the games. If you lose your wallet during this activity, maybe you should not engage in it at all?
Yeah, I don't see how anyone who's followed gaming news for more than 5 minutes can think that "the average PC gamer" is defined by concern for labor abuses.
Yes, but there is still a very surprisingly vocal set of PC gamers that always seem to refer to Valve as if Steam were the local Mom & Pop shop down the street and not the Wal-Mart of videogames that it has become. (It's fine that Steam is the Wal-Mart of PC Gaming, but let's treat it that way.)
The whole article seems like the author just woke up from a 15-year coma and is having trouble coming to terms with modern commerce.