Are other niche phone communities as polarizing as BB's?
I was just thinking about this the other day. If there's one thing you can say about the BB fanbase that can be universally applied across every person that makes up the community, it's that we're passionate. Passionate about BBOS, BB10, DroidBerry, pkb, vkb, Blend, Link, BBM, sideloading, stock price, quarterly earnings, hardware supply chain, software licensing model... you name it and there's some level of fire in everyone's belly.
However with that passion comes a ridiculous amount of polarization. As a long time BB diehard, I live in this polarizing bubble and love it for the escape that it provides. I think the reason the passion runs so strong is because we are indeed a part of a very small and niche'ed community that is often misunderstood by the general public for not adopting the more mainstream mobile options (i.e. Apple and Sammy).
So I was wondering if other niche mobile communities live in the same polarizing manner as we BB diehards do? The only other niche market that comes to my mind is the gamer. In the last two years, they've gotten the Razer and now the ROG phone. The difference with that community is that there are different OEMs competing for their dollars where as BB (thanks to TCL, Optiemus and BB Merah Puti) is the only player in town in the pkb game.
Is the gaming community as fractured as ours? There's no real established "gaming phone" brand yet so do people take up arms for their favourite manufacturer? Do they fight like siblings on their forums the way we do on CB?
Commercially, is the gaming phone niche a viable one? Do they sell more or less units than BBs?
Curious to hear your thoughts on this!