Dear Jonas,
you say it's wrong to be fanatical about indie games and to point a finger at the industry, but then again you point your own finger at people who do so, and seem to be quite fanatical about that yourself.
There's always people out there who like to shoot their guns just because - and that just go with the flow (or trend) on who should be bashed next. But those are fellow-runners, and not the people who started it in the first place.
Indie gaming always has existed, next to the industry. Hobby projects, shareware, modding, etc. - all that stuff did already exist, long before the term "indie developer" has been coined. There always have been people making games who did not want to make it their full time job, or that did want to, but weren't able to get the job they wanted. (The latter probably being those who really started that verbal bashing habit, out of being disappointed...)
The big question is, why - all of a sudden - indie gaming does get that much attention, and why suddenly the fellow-runners (who just like to shoot their guns) decided (following a common notion) to take on the gaming industry. Indie gaming does exist even longer as there is an industry to speak of, and it always harbored people disappointed by the industry (and verbal about it). Why did it become viral just exactly now?
It's all connected to the sudden growth of the market. Computer gaming is going through it's transformation from being a niche market, to becoming common amongst all ages, classes and genders - and finally being officially proclaimed a part of our culture, just like TV/Movies and Books are too.
The market has grown a lot, and so has the amount of money that resides in that market. But the risks (for investors/publishers) have grown too. Game budgets have become ridiculously expensive, and there are more games failing to amortize that investment, than there are games actually becoming profitable. And like all other big industries, the gaming industry has become totally centered on shareholder profits. Losing/firing your star game designer can have a devastating impact on the stock quotation. To be on the save side, publisher may not allow to become any of their designers a star. Developers a bought up, held under tight control, and anyone on the team is kept replaceable - so that even in the worst case, you are always able to continue a lucrative franchise.
The side-effect of that is, that creativity gets chocked, any eagerness to experiment is suppressed. The games produced become just as exchangeable and replaceable as the developers that make them. The industry has turned to mostly mass-producing sequels and prequels of ideas made by development studios that once where creative before they got bought up and where made replaceable. And as the number of developer studios that potentially could be bought up dwindled rapidly, so did the creative drive of the industry.
Stale shovelware has become the norm, the jewels in-between have become very rare. People have attuned to that. As the scale for innovation became smaller and smaller, people learned to spot and enjoy much more diminutive amounts of it. People started to claim that games already where so evolved and developed, that it was utterly impossible to have as much experimentation and innovation as in the early days. Everything has become much more fine-grained, which is only a sign of how much games have grown up. Just think about how different the first types of cars where from each other, and how much similar they all have become - in terms of technology they are using inside.
Well and then suddenly some - more cheaply produced - games came along that totally proved that theory was wrong, by showing just how much new ideas and innovation still was possible, even today.
And that is when - and why - people started to turn on the industry. Not because of fanaticism or because they didn't play/buy any AAA titles any more. Not because they really thought indie games where better in all regards or should overtake the industry completely. But because they wanted the industry to see and realize what it was lacking! They wanted their industry, their big budget AAA titles, to occasionally deliver that kind of game, that has the power to become an instant cult classic. That unprecedented one-of-a-kind jewel that has a lasting impact, and is not exchangeable/replaceable. Because no matter how shiny the jewels of the indie developers may be - they are diamonds in the rough - and mostly lack the polish that many people have come to expect from a game.
So what will happen in the future? Indies will sprout and some of them will become successful and turn into full-fledged commercial developer studios. Those will then getting bought up by the industry giants again, enabling them to get their hands onto innovative ideas again. (And on new cult franchises they can then churn out sequels for). And then everyone will be happy again, and the fellow-runners will find someone else to point their guns at.
