Well, I think a big part of the problem is the whole "don't you know who your talking to?" attitude among a lot of casuals. People that think they are special and shouldn't be talked down to because they are a manager, drive a fancy car, and/or happen to be in good shape. I consider this a benefit of anonymity to be honest because I tend to think it results in a lot of arrogant and self important people getting exactly what they should be getting IRL. To be honest with you, that is a big part of the problem I think, a lot of noobs, especially casual ones tend to be quite arrogant.
To put things into perspective, someone who started playing World Of Warcraft (for example) a few years ago generally had to spend a lot of time figuring things out. If some nub jumps up and starts demanding answers to things people had to work for, and makes it clear they are doing so in order to race to the end of the game and "don't want to waste the time learning", it can make veterans pretty irritated. I'm willing to help a newbie (as opposed to a noob) who seems to be making a genuine effort to play but gets stuck, on the other hand if it's someone who has the wrong attitude and/or seems to be stuck because they are too lazy to bother to read the quest description, I have little or no sympathy.
When it comes to something like "Super Mario Brothers", again a lot of people put many, many hours into beating that game and discovering it's ridiculous numbers of secrets. How you go about asking for help, and how much effort you seem to be putting in seems to have a lot to do with the reception someone gets. A lot of people do very much approach things from the perspective of "I'm uber, and I shouldn't be stuck here, I'm better than this. Someone tell me how to do it".
See, I think there is a point being missed in this article, and that is that there is a differance between newbie and "noob". Everyone was a newbie at one point, but not everyone was a noob. Noob is a state of mind more than anything, an inherant trait that CAN be overcome, but takes work.
Let me sort of illustrate the point in detail, something that will have a lot of World Of Warcraft veterans shaking their heads because they understand exactly what I mean.
Let's say your in Goldshire, someone wants help to kill "Hogger", that's fine, Hogger is famous because he's the first boss most alliance players will meet that requires help, it's designed that way, and we've all been there. People will generally accept this, and we all make Hogger jokes because of it. On the other hand let's say someone says they need help finding and killing "Goldtooth", who is a solo mob and the subject of a quest that tells you exactly where he is. Goldshire isn't that big, and is designed to be explored and for new characters to gain experience by fighting the various wandering monsters as they do. Someone who asks this usually isn't wanting to play the game seriously.
Now to illustrate the problem, let's say the noob above whines enough where he manages to get through Goldshire in record time, and enters Westfall. The guy starts crying because the Defias and Harvesters hit harder and are higher levels than him and he keeps getting trashed. What's more most of the quests require him to search and explore and deal with higher level mobs. Not wanting to go back and level he starts screaming for help about everything and basically gets people to play the game for him.
Accelerate this a while, and you see this guy (and we've all met "him") sitting around in the current endgame hub, with a max level character, and lacking most of the basic skills your supposed to have to play. He inevitably gets stuck in groups for random heroics and/or begs his way into raids that are short people, and causes problems due to lack of developed understanding about concepts like "aggro", or combat movement. Being used to effectively having the game played for him, he never learns week after week. This guy probably doesn't even know how to get items because "he doesn't want to waste the time" and simply buys gold from Chinese farmers to keep himself operating (they stay in business for a reason). He decides he needs an alternate character so he can do other things, he buys one, and then winds up with TWO characters he doesn't know how to play. He starts to get a bad reputation, so he pays to have his name changed by Blizzard periodically.
That is a nub, and in many cases he very much does have a "don't you know who I am?" attitude, and in some cases will even tell you that along with making it clear he doesn't "have the time" for farming or otherwise playing the bloody game.
This kind of mentality exists outside of WoW and MMORPGs as well, you have them in all types of games. "Casual" gamers are oftentimes disliked in part because casual gamers feel they are entitled to being handed success in a game because people like them who have "lives" don't have the time to actually play and develop skills or resources. You get people like this who show up in shooters and other action games as well. A new player in a shooter who doesn't know what he's doing (but is trying to learn) is one thing, a player who doesn't make an effort and keeps playing a sniper to farm kills or whatever and doesn't care about the team (surprisingly common) is something else entirely, especially if you keep meeting them and they aren't even trying to avoid making the same mistakes, or adapt how they are playing.
Polite newbies who are making an effort to learn and play the games right are generally not scorned. Nubs on the other hand are something else entirely when you meet them for real. What's more it's the Nubs who keep the farmers, character sellers, for cash achievement boosters, and other types of unsavory people who mess up entire games in business. Not to mention arguably being the reason why games now routinely sell services for changing character names and servers and such, whch have legitimate uses, but generally seem to mostly be employed by people who want to avoid bad reputations, typically gained from constant nubbish behavior.
Such are my thoughts on the subject. Newbies are arguably the life blood of a game, and what keeps it going and a fresh pool of players, nubs on the other hand are like a parasite that makes you sick, and can eventually lead to the death of the game (or at least enjoyment of it).
