Games are escapism, some need that a lot more than others, it seems to me at least Mike needs SC to be something it never can.
Ranting on Twitch is entertaining but it does have its limits, and Mike himself has said he's stopped paying attention to his viewing figures because they are going down and that upsets him even more.
Games are escapism, for some.
For others, it's a pathway to passive income and minor celebrity (for certain values of online celebrity in the streaming world regarding niche games). Mike has also said in the past that he needed CIG to deliver because he relies on the game being good to keep streaming. He's also said he's giving up on SC.
Yet here we are. He says a lot of things. Consistency was never his bag.
For other people, games (SC in particular) have become something else. A chance to laugh at the naysayers, the people who year after year said it couldn't be done. From the "90 days tops!" people to those who laughed at macrotransactions, to those who wonder why CIG will ignore the lack of fundamentals while touting stuff like "Hey, we have ASL emotes in the project now!" Those (EDIT: the people defending SC on all platforms - I feel the need to clarify)) are the ones getting angry, lashing out, and showing up in threads and comment sections of articles to show how unbalanced they've become over a video game. That has some crossover with the "spite pledging" crowd, but it comes down to emotional sunk cost.
In short, the blissful escapism is the ideal reason why people play, but once you get past that veneer, the reasons are more varied.
