system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV. I am insensitive to the Gaming Industry's portrayal of women, minorities, and how it deals with other socially sensitive topics.

I just don't care anymore, if I can say that I cared at all.

I'm involved in the industry that creates games, and I just flat don't care about how the medium handles people.  I think that game designers, artists, writers, producers, directors, and such other entities that are involved in the creation of a game should be exempt of the social prosecution of concerned citizens.

This isn't to say that I fully support games advocating for the mass slaughtering of the Jewish population, or that a game that encourages a return to human slavery or the wide scale oppression of any subset of people, but I genuinely don't see the harm of a game being marketed with a sexy lady(or even a massive number of games being marketed similarly.)  Or the protagonist of a gang-related game being black.  What's the harm in this?

Are we, as a society, so simple minded and impressionable that we cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality?  Between what is socially acceptable and what isn't?  

Do we really need all facets of entertainment sterilized with the sharp corners sanded down and padded?  

Do all off-color and inside jokes need to be cast aside for the sake of not making someone uncomfortable?  

Do we need to deny our sexuality so that sexually absent-minded people can breathe knowing that no one showed a nipple or butt-cheek in the making of a game?

Do we need to tell fans that they can't dress as their more risque favorites?  Do we have to tell people that you can't be sexy and strong, both in form and in character?

Do we need to ensure that all characters are accurately, but tastefully represented for their nationality, gender, religion, marital status, age, and whatever else it is journalists find to incite the rage of their audience?  

I don't think so.  I think that it's honestly a waste of time to try to sanitize everything, since its impossible to please everyone all the time.  I think that, it is disingenuous to deny the realities of our history and our present by painting things politically correct.  I think that the beautiful shine the most when there's still a bit of tarnish.

If the industry needs to change, it will change in time, and I don't think any amount of drum banging will help.  If anything, I think most of it wears on people, until they're as exhausted as I am about it.

Everyone else I've told this thinks I'm an asshole, and my job hinges on what people think of what I make.  CMV, and give me a reason to care.
gpt
Louis C.K. and Patton Oswalt both have thoughts on the subject of rape jokes. Essentially the idea is that rape jokes are only funny if they're punching up - there's a horrific imbalance of power and it's resulted in a great deal of trauma. Making jokes about the trauma, about the victim, is punching down. Your jokes are making things worse. Joking about the rapist, the fact that society let this happen, is punching up. It's attacking the powerful, the people who should have been in control, the person who stole power they were never meant to have.

Games are an entertainment medium like any other, and it's one that has a great deal of power. Grid iron players get plays from what works in Madden; music featured in game soundtracks sell more copies. Games are a part of culture now, and culture absolutely influences how people feel. We wear deodorant because an early 20th century advertising campaign stigmatised body odor. We feel worried about nuclear power in part because the movie The China Syndrome, about a nuclear power plant meltdown, came out a week before the Three Mile Island meltdown. Untold numbers of African-American children, women especially, were inspired by Uhura on the bridge of the Enterprise. And as an entertainment medium that your audience listens to, you, as a game designer, have power to influence how people see the world.

It is so, so easy to use it to punch up, if you understand what target you're trying to hit. Break stereotypes put in place by people who want to keep black people in their place. Don't give the people peddling the madonna/whore dichotomy any oxygen. Even better, mock them. Be satirical. You can be edgy, you can be sexy, if the social norm you're trying to push is one that's worth breaking.

Or, at least, you could recognise that you don't want to do that, and that is also a valid choice. Plenty of games focus on trying to make something fun, and they step away from areas that need to be handled with care so they can spend their time as wisely as possible - although it's a lot harder than it seems, because unless you're making a puffball like Kirby you're probably introducing baggage.

And then there's the other choice, the one where you punch down. You already recognise that what matters to your game is whether people like it, but you don't yet recognise that your audience is so much broader than you realise. Kids in Iraq will play your game. Female rape victims will play your game. African-American kids in poor neighbourhoods will play your game. And they will internalise what you show them as being acceptable.

Besides, being more empathic with your audience will improve your game design skills. Why do you think they run playtests? Because a game's nothing without a player, and you want to make sure that you think the player is feeling is what the player is actually feeling. You don't want them bored where they should be excited, you don't want them amused when you want them scared, and you don't want them disgusted when you want them laughing.