- Games have been marketed towards teenage to young adult men heavily from the 90s up to now (although is less severe now, mid to late 2000's was probably the peak)
- Games are also all about empowerment, particularly male empowerment
- Games have generally had a negative stereotype associated with them historically (probably due to points 1 and 2)
Because of the above points, people that are in to games, have let it form a big part of their identity in a degree larger and a lot different to how fans of film, books, theatre etc have done previously.
Mainly due to the marketing part, it's a large part of their identity, they are used to being specifically catered to, and they have a chip on their shoulder because it has negatives stereotypes associated with it.
That's how we end up with "Gamer" - and it's a derogatory term because it's associated with young males that have an unhealthy level of their identity associated with videogames, that want to maintain being fully catered to by marketing, and feel rejected by society because they love games.
That's how you end up with gamergate, and how you end up with this BlizzCon embarrassment.
- Gamergate because the females want to take our games away (We aren't the sole target for marketing any more, the females are accepted by society, we aren't and now the companies don't want us as the target demographic any more)
- Blizzcon because the casuals want to take our games away (We aren't the sole target for marketing any more the casuals are accepted by society, we aren't and now the companies don't want us as the target demographic any more).
When you think about, it's massively psychological, Gamergate was a collective reaction to perceived abandonment and rejection caused by "the left."
Anyway, words mean things and gather connotations, you can sit here and say Gamer = People Who Play Games - but that isn't true, it has developed a negative connotation and for good reason.
Redneck = Person with a red neck
Hillbilly = Person that lives in the hills
But come on, we know what these words really mean in today's world, let's not feign ignorance here.