Yes, but those guys are losing the eyeballs of the masses with the borderline-fake SEO-oriented reviews. As the OP states, if the trend continues they will disappear.
It's not a terribly recent trend, though, and some sites are still flourishing, so it's not inevitable.
It's worth noting that Ben carved out his section of Ars Technica himself, basically proving the value of his paycheck by starting to write content and bringing in the readers. Prior to that, gaming coverage on Ars was extremely light to nonexistent. Now Kyle Orland is keeping up Ars's gaming coverage, and Ben has started another gaming coverage site at Penny Arcade.
Both are using an existing, relatively successful property to bootstrap, but that's fairly common in any business (the property may be called "your investors"), and coverage there and other places has arguably opened up a market for more independent game coverage.
