"we NEED passive consumers" is a sentence you'd hear from an evil CEO who wants to turn people into compliant slaves, not from someone who tries to argue about the health of communities.
If we gatekept gaming fandoms to only people who purely played it there would be fucking NOTHING
we NEED passive consumers and engagers, and if youre well versed in the series despite not playing the games, YOU ARE A FAN. (Minus gameplay discussion)