There was a lot of similar rage around Angry Birds, as I recall. You're right - there's an outsized sense of outrage whenever a game succeeds by pandering to someone other than teenaged white males. I want to say "on the other hand, I certainly wouldn't want my daughter to use Kim Kardashian as a role model" but you're right - I wouldn't want her to use Lara Croft, either. I guess the difference is Lara Croft isn't real? Know what this comment needs? More smizing.
I don't know if you played any of the the new Tomb Raider, but holy shit was it garbage. The narrative dissonance was off the charts, and the fact that it still had to exist as an ultra-violent shooter shows how far gaming has really progressed in any standpoint. And that doesn't even include the fetishistic death-scenes that happened whenever you failed the hundreds of QTEs. If that's what passes off as "good literature" in gaming circles than count me the fuck out. Also Update I'm banned from Polygon:
Played it and beat it! Goddamn was that a frustrating game. "oh, I'm a poor defenseless waif with big boobs! Oh! I'm trapped on this island of misanthropic animists! Oh! I just found a machine gun I guess I'll have to use it! Oh! apparently parachutes and trees do not go together unless you're a fan of repeated gruesome impalement! Oh, I'm a defenseless pacifist who must open a 64oz can of whoopass in order to get my equally defenseless pacifist friend from the clutches of human sacrifice!"
YES YES! I was going to link that review, that's pretty much exactly how I feel about it. I couldn't believe people were lauding that game for its story. When you try to build an emotional story around the shell of a violent third person shooter like all the other violent third person shooters, it's gonna be a bad time. Problem is shooters sell, and rather than take any imposed risk from a gameplay perspective, they tried to shove the two together. Square peg, meet round hole. At least the Last of Us was a violent world with an experienced, violent protagonist, so the gameplay made sense, even if it was boring as fuck and you could easily cut the cutscenes away from the gameplay, paste it together, and get a Last of Us movie with nothing lost.
My big beef with Tomb Raider was how completely locked down all the gameplay was. You go here, then you go here, then you go here, then you get through this completely stupid, completely pointless semi-cutscene where you're coached to smash this button or you die gruesomely and by the way, you're going to need to keep doing this for half an hour to return to normal gameplay. What a shitshow.