The worst part is that none of these social media platforms give you any ability to have them stop surfacing this crap on your feed. Anger drives engagement, so they have no incentive. Of all the...
The worst part is that none of these social media platforms give you any ability to have them stop surfacing this crap on your feed. Anger drives engagement, so they have no incentive.
Of all the things you can detect through machine learning and NLP, picking up on a general tone isn't that hard. It's easy enough in writing, it's stupidly easy in video. (Relatively speaking, of course. We are talking about Facebook and Alphabet here.)
Anger (and fear), in particular, are very easy to spot. Generally speaking, humans are very good at detecting them and very bad at hiding them in a way that is not true for more complex emotions like affection, pleasure, or curiosity. It shouldn't be too hard to train a model to spot when someone is angry and give people options to avoid content that is chronically angry and bitter. They're just choosing not to.
The way YouTube lets you flag videos you're not interested in is telling. You get 3 options. "I've already seen it," "I don't like it," and "I don't like this channel." But it doesn't get more granular than that. I can't say "This guy is always angry. It's just a video game. I don't want to listen to people who get this angry over toys." I can't even say "Stop putting Nazi shit in my feed."
They think they know what we want better than we do. It's pernicious part of the culture around the modern tech industry. Unlike most of my colleagues, I came into data analytics from the social sciences where most of your time is spent interrogating your models for validity. In other words, are we actually measuring what we think we're measuring? How generalizable are these conclusions? What's the source of causation here?
When I went into industry I was shocked by how little anyone seemed to care about any of that. It is entirely focused on "Here's the output we want, give me the inputs I need to get it reliably." In this case, the outputs are clicks and eyeballs. The inputs are whatever it takes to get those eyeballs glued on the screen. The mechanisms of causation, the long term ethical implications, or even little things like "is our model congruent with what we know about objective reality" weren't even considered.
It's ultimately unhealthy to feed the cycle of rage. Anger has a time and a place, but when it becomes your entertainment I wonder how likely it is to bleed into other aspects of life. Does it...
It's ultimately unhealthy to feed the cycle of rage. Anger has a time and a place, but when it becomes your entertainment I wonder how likely it is to bleed into other aspects of life. Does it affect their ability to cope with difficult times? Are they more likely to cope with anger rather than a healthier emotional response? I don't have answers to these questions but we should probably investigate them.
The more interesting message embedded within the article, I think, is the one about how the algorithm and the earning model for YouTubers drives them to create this negative content: I've read...
The more interesting message embedded within the article, I think, is the one about how the algorithm and the earning model for YouTubers drives them to create this negative content:
Zakrzewski, of Upper Echelon Gamers, said that as his channel grows, he feels a responsibility to keep making videos with a similar tone to the ones that attracted people in the first place.
"They identify with content that is like them, and it's unfiltered and very genuine, so I'm never going to entertain the idea of losing that," Zakrzewski said. "I've thought about taking that edge off or thought about reducing the amount of flammable rhetoric or incendiary things that I say, but I don't see myself ever doing it."
I've read similar remarks from other YouTubers in other domains as well: they are compelled to produce content they might not even necessarily think is good both by the demands of their audience and that of the recommendation algorithm. It honestly seems like a depressing situation to be in, doing YouTube full-time is often painted as this dream job of being able to do what you like for money, but the reality seems quite far removed from that. You might even end up doing work you don't like just because the pivot to something more in line with your own wants is too risky.
This article received a lot of pushback. Here are some of the responses by some of the youtubers referenced in the article: Upper Echelon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-c4OFOO9Ck Downward...
This article received a lot of pushback.
Here are some of the responses by some of the youtubers referenced in the article:
The current state of Journalism leaves a lot to be desired. The decreasing relevance of these outlets and editors has left them ravenous for any foothold to push back... but in the absence of any true talent, they resort to subterfuge.
As I stated at the end of the video, CNET has opted to deliberately target advertisers over an extended period of time to damage my own, and other gaming creators channels. Do I think it will do hardly anything? no... I don't...
There's another part to the article that I didn't get into in this video, which is essentially the author's attempts to run Youtubers into the ground... specifically TheQuartering. I wanted to stay on track with my points, but I'd like to address it now. At the end of the article, it appears that the author was trying to go out of his way to contact advertising companies and question them whether they run ads on his platform. Was he trying to encourage them to blacklist TheQuartering? Maybe, maybe not. But I don't think it's ethical to put a 'hit' piece out on a Youtuber to try to cause them financial damage, even if it is a side-effect of the conversation. F**K that. Anyway, hope you enjoy the video guys. My opinion has never changed: negativity has a purpose if it's used appropriately. I've crossed the line once or twice, but for the most part I only use it when I want to see some real good change come about from it.
Angry gaming channels definitely have a place on YouTube, especially with the games industry being as borderline crooked as it is. In this E3 alone there's been plenty to be angry about. Shenmue 3...
Angry gaming channels definitely have a place on YouTube, especially with the games industry being as borderline crooked as it is.
In this E3 alone there's been plenty to be angry about. Shenmue 3 going EGS exclusive, Google Stadia's price model, Fallout 76 getting a half-baked Battle Royale mode, the awful Commander Keen iOS/Android remake that Bethesda announced. Heck, the sheer amount of mobile games that Bethesda announced.
I'll be honest, I just can't understand what there is to be angry out. I'm not libertarian, but with something like the video game industry, I just don't... care? I mean I can understand when...
In this E3 alone there's been plenty to be angry about
I'll be honest, I just can't understand what there is to be angry out. I'm not libertarian, but with something like the video game industry, I just don't... care? I mean
Google Stadia's price model
I can understand when people get angry when Truvada is stupidly expensive for PrEP, because that's life threatening. It's highly inelastic. People need it whatever the price.
But Google Stadia? I can understand disappointment, but I just can't understand anger. Just don't get it if it's not the right price for you.
Or
Heck, the sheer amount of mobile games that Bethesda announced.
Man, some people like mobile games! That's why companies keep making them, because people actually do play them and spend money on them. What's there to be angry about?
I agree with you that a lot of gamer complaints sound like entitled whining. And my default response when I'm disappointed about games is to be, well, disappointed, not shaking with rage. That...
I agree with you that a lot of gamer complaints sound like entitled whining. And my default response when I'm disappointed about games is to be, well, disappointed, not shaking with rage. That said, it's a bit disingenuous to say "well it could be worse, you could be unable to afford your HIV/AIDS medication." It's like, obviously. Millions of people are starving in the world right now, people are dying in wars, dying due to lack of clean drinking water, lack of access to basic medicine, the climate is fucked, etc etc. Scummy practices targeting well-off Western consumers is clearly not the biggest problem in the world. But they are still scummy.
We shouldn't have to preface any complaint about an inessential consumer good with a laundry list of all the real problems in the world. Most people, including gamers, are well aware. I feel like getting unreasonably angry about consumer issues is if anything a sign of people just feeling completely apathetic and powerless to actually do something about serious issues. (Not all. Some people are just spoiled and lack any real world perspective, but I think they are louder than their numbers.)
I also think a lot of these angry ranters are more entertainment than anything. Sometimes it's just funny to watch someone go absolutely ballistic precisely because what they're complaining about isn't that important.
Like I said, I personally tend to keep a level head about these things. Most of the complaints above about E3 are not that big of a deal. But there's definitely issues with the game industry, from the mostly disappointing like fake hype and crowdfunding campaigns that lie to consumers to the seriously ethically shitty things like targeting minors with incredibly manipulative microtransaction schemes. And we should be able to talk about such things (maybe even get angry every once in a while) without having to talk about the war in Yemen, global warming or the cost of HIV medication. There does exist a reasonable middle ground.
It's not really disingenuous, because the question here isn't "is this bad" or even "is this worth complaining about?" The question is "Why is this worth getting so worked up about?" There's a...
That said, it's a bit disingenuous to say "well it could be worse, you could be unable to afford your HIV/AIDS medication."
It's not really disingenuous, because the question here isn't "is this bad" or even "is this worth complaining about?" The question is "Why is this worth getting so worked up about?" There's a serious lack of perspective in some corners of internet culture. It's not mentally or socially healthy. You can be annoyed or upset at things, but there is not a whole lot in games that is worth making this face.
And what stuff there is is rarely the stuff people get angry about. People get angriest about stuff being too expensive or not having enough content. Not moral or ethical lapses.
I just think it's unnecessary and unreasonable to basically brush off any emotion stronger than a mild shrug as being an overreaction because nothing matters as much as issues of life or death....
I just think it's unnecessary and unreasonable to basically brush off any emotion stronger than a mild shrug as being an overreaction because nothing matters as much as issues of life or death. You could shut down 95% of all discussions on the internet and in real life with the same type of rhetoric. Some of those issues are actually important, just not literally life-threatening.
Like I said, I generally agree that gaming culture has a lot of overblown outrage and entitled thinking. But that doesn't mean you have to brand anyone who cares about anything in the industry as a giant baby who doesn't have a perspective on the real issues facing the world. That comment didn't go that far but it's a gesture in that direction, which I think is an overreaction in the opposite direction. We don't need to either be unreasonably mad about inessential things or unreasonably smug about people actually caring about entertainment products.
The conflation of "caring about things" with "losing your shit when things don't go your way" is the problem here. It is possible to care very deeply about something without throwing a tantrum...
I just think it's unnecessary and unreasonable to basically brush off any emotion stronger than a mild shrug as being an overreaction because nothing matters as much as issues of life or death. You could shut down 95% of all discussions on the internet and in real life with the same type of rhetoric. Some of those issues are actually important, just not literally life-threatening.
Like I said, I generally agree that gaming culture has a lot of overblown outrage and entitled thinking. But that doesn't mean you have to brand anyone who cares about anything in the industry as a giant baby who doesn't have a perspective on the real issues facing the world. That comment didn't go that far but it's a gesture in that direction, which I think is an overreaction in the opposite direction. We don't need to either be unreasonably mad about inessential things or unreasonably smug about people actually caring about entertainment products.
The conflation of "caring about things" with "losing your shit when things don't go your way" is the problem here. It is possible to care very deeply about something without throwing a tantrum when it doesn't work out. You can have very deeply held opinions about a book without feeling the need to flood the author's inbox, and any forum where people will listen with long-winded jeremiads about how much they've disappointed you.
That's the lack of perspective I'm talking about. Not starving kids in Africa or whatever but the idea that there are healthy and pro-social ways of processing disappointment and there are unhealthy and anti-social ways to do it. Gamer culture especially, and nerd culture more broadly is extremely tilted towards the latter, almost to the point where it has come to be treated as a defining trait of the community.
Well, I never supported any of that behavior. However, the original comment I responded to did bring up the cost of AIDS meds, which is basically equivalent to starving kids in Africa. And my...
You can have very deeply held opinions about a book without feeling the need to flood the author's inbox, and any forum where people will listen with long-winded jeremiads about how much they've disappointed you. That's the lack of perspective I'm talking about. Not starving kids in Africa or whatever.
Well, I never supported any of that behavior. However, the original comment I responded to did bring up the cost of AIDS meds, which is basically equivalent to starving kids in Africa.
And my position continues to be that that's an easy way to trivialize almost anything, and is a bit of an overblown response to the admittedly overblown rage of some gamers. It's possible to not completely lose your shit but still be angry, and there is a difference between anger and "a tantrum". Honestly, that word annoys me more than it should, because it's often used to trivialize legitimate but emotional responses to serious issues. Note that I didn't say any of your hypothetical examples were worthy of an angry outburst, nor the frivolous list of E3 complaints above, but that doesn't mean angry outbursts (while still remaining within the basic limits of civil society) are reserved only for AIDS and starving kids in Africa.
Anyways, it seems you're not talking about the same things I am, but you're still responding to me for some reason, so that doesn't bode well for any further conversation.
Hey man, don't put words in my mouth. That wasn't even the intention of that section of my post. I just didn't want people to assume I believed the free market always self regulates and that...
But that doesn't mean you have to brand anyone who cares about anything in the industry as a giant baby who doesn't have a perspective on the real issues facing the world.
Hey man, don't put words in my mouth. That wasn't even the intention of that section of my post. I just didn't want people to assume I believed the free market always self regulates and that companies can price or do their business however they want without harming people.
I don't believe I'm putting words in anyone's mouth. Did you not read the next line, where I said: And I'll stand by that. When you said you don't care about the games industry, while also...
I don't believe I'm putting words in anyone's mouth. Did you not read the next line, where I said:
That comment didn't go that far but it's a gesture in that direction, which I think is an overreaction in the opposite direction.
And I'll stand by that. When you said you don't care about the games industry, while also bringing up the cost of life-or-death medication as an example of legitimate things to care about, I do think that reads like a gesture in the direction of what I said, which I also stated was an exaggeration of what you said. However, maybe you just intended to say you didn't care about the particular issues brought up about E3, not any and all possible issues consumers may have with the games industry.
I just didn't want people to assume I believed the free market always self regulates and that companies can price or do their business however they want without harming people.
It's a bit odd to state that you don't believe this by saying that you don't understand why anyone cares. That said, I don't want to go further in criticizing a position that is clearly stronger than you intended, although I hope you can see why I brought this up and why I'd read things the way I did. I don't care for intentionally setting up strawmen.
That wasn't really the intention. It was more to indicate that I wasn't the "free market solves all" kind of person. Sometimes companies can be gouge prices unethically, and sometimes pricing...
That said, it's a bit disingenuous to say "well it could be worse, you could be unable to afford your HIV/AIDS medication."
That wasn't really the intention. It was more to indicate that I wasn't the "free market solves all" kind of person. Sometimes companies can be gouge prices unethically, and sometimes pricing schemes or product releases can be worth outrage.
And that in comparison, with something elastic like entertainment, I just think you should let the free market do whatever. I don't think most of what OP said is actually scummy behavior. I don't think it's scummy that Yeezy's cost a fortune, or the apple stand cost $999. Or that Google Stadia has a $10/month subscription for 4k. Or that Bethedsa makes mobile games. If you pick out a rock from the street and sell it on ebay for $100, I don't care.
I don't see how any of those things are scummy.
Lootboxes? Can be scummy. Failed kickstarters? Can be scummy (though, to some extent backers just weren't aware of what they were doing, even though the website quite clearly laid it out).
But not anything OP listed under his E3 grievances.
I think there can certainly be something to be said about unethical approches that feed into some people's addictive personality or are targeted towards children. Otherwise I'm in full agreement.
I think there can certainly be something to be said about unethical approches that feed into some people's addictive personality or are targeted towards children. Otherwise I'm in full agreement.
I don't like it when gaming channels sound legitimately angry. I prefer AVGN, where the anger is much more tongue-in-cheek. Watching his show doesn't make me feel angry at all. Jim Sterling on the...
I don't like it when gaming channels sound legitimately angry. I prefer AVGN, where the anger is much more tongue-in-cheek. Watching his show doesn't make me feel angry at all.
Jim Sterling on the other hand doesn't feel healthy at all. He makes a lot of good points, but I would rather see those same arguments made without such an enormous side of rhetoric. Unfortunately calm, reasoned discussion of problems in the gaming industry don't seem to bring the views.
76 BR actually seems to have turned out pretty good, judging from the response. I play 76 but have no interest in PVP so I can't speak from experience, but if it was bad the community would...
76 BR actually seems to have turned out pretty good, judging from the response. I play 76 but have no interest in PVP so I can't speak from experience, but if it was bad the community would definitely have made noise about it. At least in r/fo76, the vibes have been positive.
What's wrong with it? You buy the games you want, and can access them at no additional charge. What's there to be angry about? This is the same as Steam, the difference is you don't have to have...
there's been plenty to be angry about [...] Google Stadia's price model
What's wrong with it? You buy the games you want, and can access them at no additional charge. What's there to be angry about? This is the same as Steam, the difference is you don't have to have an expensive setup to get good graphics out of them. And if you want 4K you can optionally pay $10/month, which is still cheaper than keeping your hardware up-to-date.
How should it have been different? Free for 4K? That doesn't seem fair.
I find the general trend towards anger entertainment depressing. I'm saddened that so many people spend their free time being angry and upset.
The worst part is that none of these social media platforms give you any ability to have them stop surfacing this crap on your feed. Anger drives engagement, so they have no incentive.
Of all the things you can detect through machine learning and NLP, picking up on a general tone isn't that hard. It's easy enough in writing, it's stupidly easy in video. (Relatively speaking, of course. We are talking about Facebook and Alphabet here.)
Anger (and fear), in particular, are very easy to spot. Generally speaking, humans are very good at detecting them and very bad at hiding them in a way that is not true for more complex emotions like affection, pleasure, or curiosity. It shouldn't be too hard to train a model to spot when someone is angry and give people options to avoid content that is chronically angry and bitter. They're just choosing not to.
The way YouTube lets you flag videos you're not interested in is telling. You get 3 options. "I've already seen it," "I don't like it," and "I don't like this channel." But it doesn't get more granular than that. I can't say "This guy is always angry. It's just a video game. I don't want to listen to people who get this angry over toys." I can't even say "Stop putting Nazi shit in my feed."
They think they know what we want better than we do. It's pernicious part of the culture around the modern tech industry. Unlike most of my colleagues, I came into data analytics from the social sciences where most of your time is spent interrogating your models for validity. In other words, are we actually measuring what we think we're measuring? How generalizable are these conclusions? What's the source of causation here?
When I went into industry I was shocked by how little anyone seemed to care about any of that. It is entirely focused on "Here's the output we want, give me the inputs I need to get it reliably." In this case, the outputs are clicks and eyeballs. The inputs are whatever it takes to get those eyeballs glued on the screen. The mechanisms of causation, the long term ethical implications, or even little things like "is our model congruent with what we know about objective reality" weren't even considered.
It's ultimately unhealthy to feed the cycle of rage. Anger has a time and a place, but when it becomes your entertainment I wonder how likely it is to bleed into other aspects of life. Does it affect their ability to cope with difficult times? Are they more likely to cope with anger rather than a healthier emotional response? I don't have answers to these questions but we should probably investigate them.
The more interesting message embedded within the article, I think, is the one about how the algorithm and the earning model for YouTubers drives them to create this negative content:
I've read similar remarks from other YouTubers in other domains as well: they are compelled to produce content they might not even necessarily think is good both by the demands of their audience and that of the recommendation algorithm. It honestly seems like a depressing situation to be in, doing YouTube full-time is often painted as this dream job of being able to do what you like for money, but the reality seems quite far removed from that. You might even end up doing work you don't like just because the pivot to something more in line with your own wants is too risky.
This article received a lot of pushback.
Here are some of the responses by some of the youtubers referenced in the article:
Upper Echelon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-c4OFOO9Ck
Downward Thurst: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtqXB188e90
The Quatering:
LegacyKillaHD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-EQoCAnCiU
The twitter thread: https://twitter.com/iansherr/status/1136731713680396290
Angry gaming channels definitely have a place on YouTube, especially with the games industry being as borderline crooked as it is.
In this E3 alone there's been plenty to be angry about. Shenmue 3 going EGS exclusive, Google Stadia's price model, Fallout 76 getting a half-baked Battle Royale mode, the awful Commander Keen iOS/Android remake that Bethesda announced. Heck, the sheer amount of mobile games that Bethesda announced.
I'll be honest, I just can't understand what there is to be angry out. I'm not libertarian, but with something like the video game industry, I just don't... care? I mean
I can understand when people get angry when Truvada is stupidly expensive for PrEP, because that's life threatening. It's highly inelastic. People need it whatever the price.
But Google Stadia? I can understand disappointment, but I just can't understand anger. Just don't get it if it's not the right price for you.
Or
Man, some people like mobile games! That's why companies keep making them, because people actually do play them and spend money on them. What's there to be angry about?
I agree with you that a lot of gamer complaints sound like entitled whining. And my default response when I'm disappointed about games is to be, well, disappointed, not shaking with rage. That said, it's a bit disingenuous to say "well it could be worse, you could be unable to afford your HIV/AIDS medication." It's like, obviously. Millions of people are starving in the world right now, people are dying in wars, dying due to lack of clean drinking water, lack of access to basic medicine, the climate is fucked, etc etc. Scummy practices targeting well-off Western consumers is clearly not the biggest problem in the world. But they are still scummy.
We shouldn't have to preface any complaint about an inessential consumer good with a laundry list of all the real problems in the world. Most people, including gamers, are well aware. I feel like getting unreasonably angry about consumer issues is if anything a sign of people just feeling completely apathetic and powerless to actually do something about serious issues. (Not all. Some people are just spoiled and lack any real world perspective, but I think they are louder than their numbers.)
I also think a lot of these angry ranters are more entertainment than anything. Sometimes it's just funny to watch someone go absolutely ballistic precisely because what they're complaining about isn't that important.
Like I said, I personally tend to keep a level head about these things. Most of the complaints above about E3 are not that big of a deal. But there's definitely issues with the game industry, from the mostly disappointing like fake hype and crowdfunding campaigns that lie to consumers to the seriously ethically shitty things like targeting minors with incredibly manipulative microtransaction schemes. And we should be able to talk about such things (maybe even get angry every once in a while) without having to talk about the war in Yemen, global warming or the cost of HIV medication. There does exist a reasonable middle ground.
It's not really disingenuous, because the question here isn't "is this bad" or even "is this worth complaining about?" The question is "Why is this worth getting so worked up about?" There's a serious lack of perspective in some corners of internet culture. It's not mentally or socially healthy. You can be annoyed or upset at things, but there is not a whole lot in games that is worth making this face.
And what stuff there is is rarely the stuff people get angry about. People get angriest about stuff being too expensive or not having enough content. Not moral or ethical lapses.
I just think it's unnecessary and unreasonable to basically brush off any emotion stronger than a mild shrug as being an overreaction because nothing matters as much as issues of life or death. You could shut down 95% of all discussions on the internet and in real life with the same type of rhetoric. Some of those issues are actually important, just not literally life-threatening.
Like I said, I generally agree that gaming culture has a lot of overblown outrage and entitled thinking. But that doesn't mean you have to brand anyone who cares about anything in the industry as a giant baby who doesn't have a perspective on the real issues facing the world. That comment didn't go that far but it's a gesture in that direction, which I think is an overreaction in the opposite direction. We don't need to either be unreasonably mad about inessential things or unreasonably smug about people actually caring about entertainment products.
The conflation of "caring about things" with "losing your shit when things don't go your way" is the problem here. It is possible to care very deeply about something without throwing a tantrum when it doesn't work out. You can have very deeply held opinions about a book without feeling the need to flood the author's inbox, and any forum where people will listen with long-winded jeremiads about how much they've disappointed you.
That's the lack of perspective I'm talking about. Not starving kids in Africa or whatever but the idea that there are healthy and pro-social ways of processing disappointment and there are unhealthy and anti-social ways to do it. Gamer culture especially, and nerd culture more broadly is extremely tilted towards the latter, almost to the point where it has come to be treated as a defining trait of the community.
Well, I never supported any of that behavior. However, the original comment I responded to did bring up the cost of AIDS meds, which is basically equivalent to starving kids in Africa.
And my position continues to be that that's an easy way to trivialize almost anything, and is a bit of an overblown response to the admittedly overblown rage of some gamers. It's possible to not completely lose your shit but still be angry, and there is a difference between anger and "a tantrum". Honestly, that word annoys me more than it should, because it's often used to trivialize legitimate but emotional responses to serious issues. Note that I didn't say any of your hypothetical examples were worthy of an angry outburst, nor the frivolous list of E3 complaints above, but that doesn't mean angry outbursts (while still remaining within the basic limits of civil society) are reserved only for AIDS and starving kids in Africa.
Anyways, it seems you're not talking about the same things I am, but you're still responding to me for some reason, so that doesn't bode well for any further conversation.
Hey man, don't put words in my mouth. That wasn't even the intention of that section of my post. I just didn't want people to assume I believed the free market always self regulates and that companies can price or do their business however they want without harming people.
I don't believe I'm putting words in anyone's mouth. Did you not read the next line, where I said:
And I'll stand by that. When you said you don't care about the games industry, while also bringing up the cost of life-or-death medication as an example of legitimate things to care about, I do think that reads like a gesture in the direction of what I said, which I also stated was an exaggeration of what you said. However, maybe you just intended to say you didn't care about the particular issues brought up about E3, not any and all possible issues consumers may have with the games industry.
It's a bit odd to state that you don't believe this by saying that you don't understand why anyone cares. That said, I don't want to go further in criticizing a position that is clearly stronger than you intended, although I hope you can see why I brought this up and why I'd read things the way I did. I don't care for intentionally setting up strawmen.
That wasn't really the intention. It was more to indicate that I wasn't the "free market solves all" kind of person. Sometimes companies can be gouge prices unethically, and sometimes pricing schemes or product releases can be worth outrage.
And that in comparison, with something elastic like entertainment, I just think you should let the free market do whatever. I don't think most of what OP said is actually scummy behavior. I don't think it's scummy that Yeezy's cost a fortune, or the apple stand cost $999. Or that Google Stadia has a $10/month subscription for 4k. Or that Bethedsa makes mobile games. If you pick out a rock from the street and sell it on ebay for $100, I don't care.
I don't see how any of those things are scummy.
Lootboxes? Can be scummy. Failed kickstarters? Can be scummy (though, to some extent backers just weren't aware of what they were doing, even though the website quite clearly laid it out).
But not anything OP listed under his E3 grievances.
I think there can certainly be something to be said about unethical approches that feed into some people's addictive personality or are targeted towards children. Otherwise I'm in full agreement.
I don't like it when gaming channels sound legitimately angry. I prefer AVGN, where the anger is much more tongue-in-cheek. Watching his show doesn't make me feel angry at all.
Jim Sterling on the other hand doesn't feel healthy at all. He makes a lot of good points, but I would rather see those same arguments made without such an enormous side of rhetoric. Unfortunately calm, reasoned discussion of problems in the gaming industry don't seem to bring the views.
76 BR actually seems to have turned out pretty good, judging from the response. I play 76 but have no interest in PVP so I can't speak from experience, but if it was bad the community would definitely have made noise about it. At least in r/fo76, the vibes have been positive.
What's wrong with it? You buy the games you want, and can access them at no additional charge. What's there to be angry about? This is the same as Steam, the difference is you don't have to have an expensive setup to get good graphics out of them. And if you want 4K you can optionally pay $10/month, which is still cheaper than keeping your hardware up-to-date.
How should it have been different? Free for 4K? That doesn't seem fair.