I agree that the problems you mention happen in videogame culture, I just don’t see them as unique to that culture. Swatting is a unique form of violence that a person can do over the internet. Jumping over the sideboards and cheap-shotting the ref in the back of the head because you didn’t like their call in your 8-year-old’s hockey game is a form of violence that requires being in physical proximity. How people come to find their identity threatened by a loss of their or their proxy’s ranking in a game is the underlying issue, and why people defend from threats with physical violence.
The idea of high score not translating to merit outside of the game is the same trap people fall into with twitter followers, youtube views, or even achievements in serious areas. Engineers often think they can solve non-engineering problems easily. We live in a Dunning-Kruger culture - people tend to think of themselves as experts when they know nothing. Japan does not display that cultural trend, and they do not have a shortage of videogames.
The subjects covered in games may be pretty heavy, but so are the subjects covered in the Hunger Games and in Marvel universe movies. I actually think videogames offer a far greater diversity of narratives than you can find in other media. There are videogames about flowers growing and about a fly just flying up into the air - things that no one is making movies or writing stories about.
I agree that the videogame industry is profiting from cultivating a destructive worldview, but I think they are doing that as just one part of a culture that is cultivating a destructive worldview. What I’ve seen from videogames is that they seem to show pockets of resistance to that that I don’t see in pro sports, or movie, book or TV fandoms. I think it’s possible that videogames are mostly echoing and promoting the same toxic shit that most of our culture is but that they are actually among the least toxic forms of media.
