There is definitely an element of that from the article and I agree it's ridiculous. Some authors and their followers attack those who give poor reviews (because they can't accept criticism, instead arguing that a 'professional' review would give them a much better score) and on the other side you have people reviewing books that aren't even out. In many cases it's no longer a place to find genuine reviews, but an unmoderated wild west with crap at both extremes (a bit like Twitter in that respect). It's a shame because there are plenty of people leaving great reviews, but it's becoming much harder to find them.

Squeak :3

Took me a minute

This is a difficult one to answer as most RPGs I can think of have some combination of the stuff that puts you off. Have you tried the Witcher 3 (great story, and the RPG elements are fairly simplified) or Deus Ex: Human Revolution? And if you've played Nier Replicant and enjoyed it, I think you'd love Nier Automata.

I agree with what others have said about gamifying life. For example, 'oh it's 5pm, I need to spend 30 minutes doing some tidying before I can play a game again'. And for games with no clear end point, set yourself goals so you know when to take a break. 'Once I've built this factory, I need to take an hour's break before I can play again'.

Finally the sweet release of dissipation

Lol, does the cat not mind being an arm rest?

Thanks fellow mouse!

Why do these people hold a position of power?

I'd love a new open world Red Faction game. Guerilla was so fun!

Thanks, just laughed out loud at work reading this

This is a really difficult one for me. I do 100% agree that adult classics should remain as they are, and we should view these through the lens of historical context. Keeping those classics as they are allows us to analyse them and see how views have changed - sometimes we need to know how bad things were so we can learn from our mistakes. But I think it's also important that for young adults, these works should be studied in a classroom so there's someone there to explain the uncomfortable parts.

The difficulty comes with books aimed at very young audiences, like Roald Dahl novels. Kids may not always have the necessary support or understanding of the context. So I'm inclined to agree with Wilson here with regards to kids books, but it's a bit of a grey area for me.

*Her 2005 novel is pretty worrying though. As the other commenter mentioned, the subject matter was inappropriate even at the time. It doesn't sound like the book tackles the consequences of what happens either.