@Antanicus gamers were also very deeply indoctrinated into tech capitalist progress narratives though. throughout the 90s and 00s the big publishers' + platforms' marketing pushed this sort of anti intellectualist tribalism, taught them that a game's quality is this objective quantity and that more advanced technology and higher production values == better. and then post 9/11 american gamers were just bathed in racist imperialist war porn. so the stage was definitely set.