Arachnophobia

I just wanted to start a thread to discuss spiders. Many people don't mind spiders, while others despise them. It seems like spiders in games are about as ubiquitous as rats. Yet, I find the inclusion of giant spiders a more curious topic because of arachnophobia that many gaming audiences express.
Many games that include spiders and which have modding support often see mods which remove spiders from the game. Skyrim has a mod to change the spiders into bears, while Torchlight 2 has a mod to remove them from the game entirely.
I personally don't have arachnophobia, so to me it seems a bit odd to remove such a large part of the atmosphere. Are there many people who can't stand even the graphical representation of a spider? Or is it more of a comfort thing, more akin to simply not wanting to see spiders?
I personally am the kind of person who can push my discomforts aside in a fictional world, but I also don't have any strong phobias. So I wanted to hear other peoples' opinions on the matter.