Brawndo Addict
Banned
There are a lot of ideas presented that have analogous ideas. Instead of having someone commit suicide in a game to provide a point of grief for a main character, it could be a car accident, it could be a trip and fall, it could be a wild animal attack... it could be a lot of different things. I don't think just saying "You could have done it a different way" is a compelling reason to do something a different way.
The point is that they should have a reason for making it suicide. If I was to ask, "What went into the decision to have the character die by suicide as opposed to cancer? Did you feel that the theme of hopelessness resonated more with the player character's personal journey?" I would hope that the answer I get back is substantive and not "I don't know why we chose that specifically, there wasn't really a reason".
If you don't have a compelling reason for your choice in the first place, than asking for it to be something else is no less compelling either. And it becomes compelling if the original choice is more harmful in a broad sense than other analogous possible choices.
I don't think -all- sex workers in game media are there for the same reasons, so I think it's important to remember that of course everyone is going to have different motivations for the things they put in their games, even if it's the same thing across many games.
That being said, I also don't think it's inherently wrong to present sex and sexual themes in games - if the Triss sex scenes are just there for sexual appeal and gratification... well I don't inherently have a problem with that. I think the issue arises from not enough variety, not from the fact that there are games that have sex and show sexy things.
I guess you're just a more hopeful person than me. I honestly don't think that I would get a good answer, assuming it was honest, if I asked the developers why they decided to include a level with a brothel or sex workers or whatever. What made them gravitate towards that decision in the first place over some alternative level idea? I also don't think it's wrong to have a problem with sexual content in games if that content is always used purely for sexual appeal/gratification and nothing else.
I also don't support abdicating any personal responsibility from developers just because they're all individual pieces of the larger industry. That same logic excuses companies from culpability in diversity hiring, "There's nothing inherently wrong with an individual company having all its employees be white men over 50, it's just a problem of not enough companies having diversity in the aggregate". Unless some more localized responsibility exists for change, the status quo is unlikely to shift.
I don't quite understand this. You're saying that until games prove themselves to you, in some way, they shouldn't portray women has non-empowered? I don't know if that's going to convince anyone.
As a feeling, yes that's how I feel about a lot of media, not just games. I don't see a lot of merit to the excuses I see when the problematic behavior has negative consequences for society/individuals. It's not like including an empowered woman if you have a disempowered one is some enormous obstacle to overcome.
As a practical policy though, of course not.