Didn't read the whole post then huh?
I did, but I´m not quite sure how your Bethesda example ties into this.
To the "idiotic bitching about non-issues" bit, to be more precise.
Usually the automatic Bethesda "hateboyism" comes in the form of "The game is shit, because Bethesda made it." posts, but I wouldn´t characterize these types of posts neither as "bitching", nor as "about non-issues" and usually even these throwaway statements have some non-automatic base formed by previous experiences with Bethesda titles. "Fanboy" posts are similar case.
When there is some actual bitching involved, then it´s usually because the one doing the bitching found some issues with a game, however non-issue-y you may find them.
If you feel that Bethesda gets some flak for issues other games get away with, there are other reasons more likely than people just bitching for bitching´s sake.
Bethesda is a big huge developer everyone knows of, so it´s quite natural that feedback will be bigger in absolute numbers, bitching included, than in the case of some more off-radar developers.
Bethesda being as big as it is also bears a secondary influence on other developers who might incorporate some of Bethesda´s games´ features into their own, thinking they´ll sell more. I´m pretty sure quest markers/compass weren´t so widespread before Oblivion. In this case, in a sense bitching about these in a Bethesda thread is bitching at the source. And, well, bitching about a more widespread perceived issue in a Bethesda thread is also a good sorta "tactics" to get more attention to the perceived problem, because more people will read such a thread.
At last, but certainly not least, there´s a sorta contra-move aspect in a lot of Bethesda related bitching, because of the corrupted journalism thing - in previews/reviews journalists often let Bethesda games get away with issues they won´t get away with some lesser developers and this I personally find to be more hurtful than people doing sometimes the opposite on forums.
Bethesda certainly deserves applause for making their games as moddable as they are, but if you consider one´s feedback substantiated only when one waits 2 years for a sufficient pool of mods to be made, then spends days sorting through all these and downloading them and then a weekend installing them, well, I don´t share such sentiment.
Main purpose of computer games is entertainment and when someone pays for a game which then fails to entertain out of the box, one has every right to complain about it, because for that person the product failed at its basic function.
And, well, voicing concerns even before a game is released makes threads like this imo more interesting, at least more so then if they were entirely in unison or empty
.
If by "idiotic bitching about non-issues" you meant someone choosing a flaw in some minor element and using it as a base to generalize a whole game being bad, then I´d agree with the "idiotic" qualifier, but that´s not really how your post read and, well, this kind of bitching is pretty rare, at least here.
If you think I'm being too "subjective" then stop replying to my posts and let me rant in peace.
Hahaha, no way.
(though I´ll probably give Koa threads a rest for a while)