Well, try to publish an academic paper, and prepare for abuse in the form of reviews. At some point you need to learn to just shrug it off and focus on your work. Same is true for making games, I guess.
I'm sure that negative feedback on research papers hurts, and that there is more emotional vitriol thrown in there than necessary for constructive criticism, but I highly doubt it's comparable to the type of abuse gamers send game designers on-line, let alone that researchers have to worry about death threats and doxxing from fellow researchers.
Public backlash to controversial research is another topic entirely of course