I'm certainly not going to say you're wrong on that first part. I've been online since 1996. At that time, the internet was the domain of white, heterosexual, nerdy, generally well educated guys. And me being a white, heterosexual, nerdy, well educated guy... well... going online felt like coming home. Those were my people. I still really miss those days.
But I also know that the experience of someone not like me would've been wildly different. I learned a bajillion slurs on COD lobbies after all. It's a good thing that more people now feel welcome online, as it led to platform growth and functionality that we otherwise wouldn't have had if it was just 'my kind of people'.
The current safe, sanitised, gentrified gaming sphere also has benefits: COD lobbies these days are very pleasant by comparison. You even have to sign a code of conduct to get on multiplayer. It feels more welcoming, less hostile. Of course, companies certainly have been financially incentivized to attract as wide an audience as possible. For example, the very first GTA game sold about 6 million copies. GTA V has sold 200 million. And with ever-increasing development budgets, you can't afford to cater to a niche, you want to cast as wide a net as possible to recoup those costs.