A lot of gamers these days are getting exposure to NDA's through various betas, but there aren't really any consequences. I can get into whatever beta and tell all my friends it's awesome or that APB is going to bomb and destroy the company unless they add in gameplay by release and there's very little chance anything happens to me. With a "journalist" there's a variety of higher level consequences like where you lose your job or access to games/previews/etc., but it's still not as restricting as those who are actually involved in working on the product.
It's similar to piracy in that regard. If somebody unconnected pirates a game they probably won't ever get in trouble unless they do volume, a journalist assists in piracy (like those guys a couple years back who were using review copies) they generally have more serious problems, someone working on production helps in the piracy they have a really big problem if they get caught.
I think one of the reactions "journalists" and gamers like on GAF (not just there) are having is that they flit from HIGH to HIGH and the details of any story are not really important. What is Jaffe working on?!? MUST BE TWISTED METAL TO SAVE THE PS3! "Nope, not working on that." OH WELL THEN IT MUST BE SECRET PS3 GAME FINALLY!!!!!!!!! OR THAT PAINTING SHAKESPEAREAN GAME ABOUT WAR IN AMERICA! "Oh, it really was Twisted Metal and check out these new things we're doing" WHAT? IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SOMETHING AMAZING TWISTED METAL IS SUCH A PS1 FRANCHISE, BORING, LOOKS LIKE 360 TITLE, WHERE'S NAUGHTY GODS
You can't really win with the media and gamer desire that feeds off one another (especially when you have so many "elevated gamers" to sound writers/journalists in the media) to have this constant stream of NEW BETTER THAN EVER THURSDAYTON announcements and releases. And by the same token when you're scouring every inch of blogs, websites, job postings, linkedin, etc. people think they "missed out" because they found out about Resident Evil 7: Modern Scarefare three days after everyone else and they're behind and how can they ever keep up with all the new info? And if they can't find out, SOMETHING IS BEING WITHHELD FROM US!!!!
You owe us, we create you by wanting and talking about games! How are we supposed to build ourselves into a three year santorum over every trickle out of your game if you keep it from us?!? If we can't hype it up to absurd levels before we play it then we'll never have a proper three or six month later backlash where it's the worst thing to ever be produced by Western society! But don't worry we'll come back baby, we'll love you again in another year, don't worry, we always loved you, I promise...
The sites are upset because they can't feed the users, and the users are upset because they aren't getting fed. And both are upset later because they could have gorged earlier.
