> Diablo is just a goddamn video game.

The Super Bowl is "just a goddamn game" too. The Harry Potter series is "just a goddamn book" and Game of Thrones is "just a goddamn TV show". I'm sure whatever leisure activities you enjoy can easily be given a sneering dismissal as well.

Are we not allowed to have passion for our hobbies?

The decisions of game giants like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft have real, tangible impacts on my life. They obviously do not have such an impact on yours. Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot care about and how deeply I should care about it?

> The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers.

Not only that, they have an impact on democracy. The importance of FB, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and MSFT to society has never been higher. The relevance of ATVI to anything important is, to a first approximation, zero.

Again, you're essentially saying that because games aren't something you care about that it's wrong for anyone to care deeply about them.

I'm not much of a video game player, but I chafe at the number of people coming in to this thread to express how much more valid their emotions are, than some group of people they've have little interaction with.

I have sunk an absurd number of hours into games in my life, Diablo in particular. I still remember some of the goddamn uniques on my sorcerer from the first one (Dreamflange, Thinking Cap and Najs Plate or Cape). And while I'm totally flabbergasted by the emotional response, I'm not very judgemental about it. I don't get deep emotional attachment to sport teams or TV shows either. But the sheer fury and vitriol and the paranoia fuelled fantasies about evil journalists are a little bit unsettling to be honest, especially because we both know that the stuff we get to see is just the tip of the iceberg.

I simply can't help noticing the striking difference to the reaction to SyFy's cancellation of The Expanse.