What is the larger culture? Those who've opted out of the real world and into primetime TV, rabid sports fans, and social drinkers. Those opt out activities are much more popular than EVEonline or the other examples and would seem like a much better essay topic, certainly more raw material.
Fox news viewers outnumber active EVE players by an order of magnitude, as just one of a zillion examples, and certainly are not any closer connected to reality.
"gamer after gamer was now playing alone"
You can draw almost the same argument from live plays, to movie theaters, to "the" family TV, to watching TV alone.
How about the trend of sports are something you play, then something you watch your neighbors play, then something you watch regional teams play, then something you watch in a bar with an expensive radio, later expensive TV, finally sports are something you watch alone at home on TV.
Meanwhile in both examples, the real world goes on, outside.
You'll have about 100 times more data and over a longer time interval to gather data. Seems a little overly trendy to grab an inferior topic instead.