All of this brings ties into the other thread about Penny Arcade and their Kickstarter fundraiser. Now, the major difference here is that Penny Arcade is still a part of the mass industrial machine empire, as they need the big companies like EA, Activision, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's support (PAX, for example, would hurt if they didn't show up) - but events like this just tie into the direct reason why Penny Arcade wanted the ability to go without paid advertisers.
That's the thing that hurts the gaming media. We're so niche that the only folks who want to seriously advertise on gaming sites are publishers (well, and the occasional soft-core porn dating sites). And that's if you're a big name. If you're a small fan site, you're never going to make enough from ads to quit your day job.