Games as art largely got killed by capitalism. There's some of it in indie, as with other industries, but they turned into a largely casino-adjacent medium overall. As for game enjoyers, yeah there are a lot of people who get defensive over criticism levied at the game(s) they like. In general, any online "community" centered around a product seems to trend toward being cult-like (or cult-lite, perhaps), maybe because in the capitalist west (particularly the US section of things) the customer has virtually no power or influence short of kicking up a prolonged media shitstorm for a given company and just kinda has to deal with what is meted out or leave, so it's maybe similar to the makeup of a cult in that way; supreme leader (corporation) and followers (customers who stick around). And also the disconnect, that with online, we aren't generally talking about a business made up of people you know in your community, but instead a largely faceless entity who hardly knows your in-person region exists, much less cares.