Not off the mark, but there’s more nuance there.
Using CD Projekt as an example, the gameplay element was deemed so unacceptable due to lack of polish and poor performance that Sony outright removed the game from their online storefront due to player complaints. CD Projekt Red issued official apologies and promised substantial improvements to meet expectations. They certainly didn’t claim players were “playing it wrong” (the game LAIR claimed players and critics “played it wrong” and that studio went under, sadly).
Many games are STORY-driven though, from narrative text-based games, story-driven RPGs, and games that put their narrative out there front and center. Depending on the story backlash, I often see changes - from Final Fantasy 15’s party-focused DLC, Metroid moving far from Other M’s story and characterization in recent games, or BioWare’s entire Extended Cut and Citadel DLC based on initial story blowback, etc.
An example I’ll share is there was a romance path in a game that all the men in the room loved and approved and saw no problem with… until a female developer raised her hand to say she felt it was a bit “sexist”. That it turned the female party member into a plot device that lacked agency, just a prize for the player to win or lose. Another female developer sounded off, agreeing. Then another. Without their voices, the romance path would have been quickly approved with none of the male creators thinking there was a problem with it. But there was, and we couldn’t see it without outside perspective.
That’s how I think Spidey Office is - comics in GENERAL often still are - based on what I’ve heard from female creators who still struggle to feel seen and heard in a male-driven hierarchy of office authority. There’s so much in this recent run that makes me think of those women in the writers room at that studio, scared to speak up and be labeled a “problem” but with the courage to call out what they felt was taking a female character and reducing her just for plot drama.
Times are changing, but old writing habits and behavior dies hard.