They're the most powerful faction and have been for ages. They've also mastered metagaming and have pioneered some new, truly evil tactics.
For example, Sovereignty Wars in EVE (taking territory from others) is a long, gruelling process that can go on for months. So the goons started launching their attacks at 3 or 4 AM on a monday, to force their adversaries to wake up and go into work with no sleep. They'd do this daily, for a month. In the end, rather than defeating their foe militarily, the opponent would get demoralized and give up, surrendering all of their territory rather than have EVE continue to affect their real lives.
Beyond that, though, they're simply an incredibly powerful faction. There's a resource called technetium that's needed in order to build any of the massive ships, so it's vital for any sizeable corp to have. The Goons grabbed a virtual monopoly on it, and formed OTEC which is a cartel whose goal is to fix the prices of technetium to make it so other groups could never match the goon's strength in massive ships, while growing ridiculously wealthy in the meantime.
Basically, the goons are just really shitty to play against. Couple that with the fact that they and reddit (who used to be the closest of allies) own about 2/3s of everything there is to own in the game, and many players really, really want them to go to war and kill each other off.
In a case like this, it seems the non-SA folk got fed up and ganged up on them. As it should be. No dominant force can remain dominant; if they piss off enough folk, either by being evil or just by owning all the things, said folk will band together and take them on.
And that's one part I love about Eve (despite not playing it); the dynamic and self-organizing nature of the universe and its market.
I played Eve prior to Goonfleet, and I get a similar impression: they're an entity run by adults who are smart and find meanness hilarious, instead of the usual Eve alliance management of European teenagers.
Hopefully someone can give you a better answer, but you might have heard of 4chan? Something Awful is where they came from.
They're actually a major cultural force in EVE. ("Shoot blues" "Little bees") They're a bit like America in international relations, except there are fewer redeeming qualities.
4chan might literally be "something awful", but the site Something Awful came FROM 4chan. As did half the "meme" sites on the internet, unfortunately...
Just reinforcing JonnieCache's point.
EDIT: Apparently SA was around before 4chan. grr. In any case, they are fairly independent cultures. One charges $10 to register, the other doesn't require a username/login...
Actually, 4chan was founded by a SomethingAwful member, moot, who I think frequented the anime forum on SA (ADTRW). I'm not sure where this reversed order of formation came about.
Nowadays of course SA generally stays away from 4chan, which has become about a lot more than anime and games.
They play to have a fun laugh and how much you expend is upto you. Like any big entity at the top then they get haters and fans alike. But they do it basicly for shits and giggles and don't roleplay the honour card unless it suits them at the time for a laugh.
For example, Sovereignty Wars in EVE (taking territory from others) is a long, gruelling process that can go on for months. So the goons started launching their attacks at 3 or 4 AM on a monday, to force their adversaries to wake up and go into work with no sleep. They'd do this daily, for a month. In the end, rather than defeating their foe militarily, the opponent would get demoralized and give up, surrendering all of their territory rather than have EVE continue to affect their real lives.
Beyond that, though, they're simply an incredibly powerful faction. There's a resource called technetium that's needed in order to build any of the massive ships, so it's vital for any sizeable corp to have. The Goons grabbed a virtual monopoly on it, and formed OTEC which is a cartel whose goal is to fix the prices of technetium to make it so other groups could never match the goon's strength in massive ships, while growing ridiculously wealthy in the meantime.
Basically, the goons are just really shitty to play against. Couple that with the fact that they and reddit (who used to be the closest of allies) own about 2/3s of everything there is to own in the game, and many players really, really want them to go to war and kill each other off.