Then they are taking a very narrow view of the game. Their view is ONLY the part of the game that they use ignoring the rest of the game. They either don't know or don't care about anything else in the game. So that does make them wrong. They are ignoring major parts of the game. I would say they just don't care about any part of the game outside of what they use. The game did go backwards whether they realize it or not. I don't play online, but I still realize that online franchise is still not where it should be.
It's like saying that a crime didn't effect me, so it didn't happen.