I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at. Do you want anyone uncomfortable with this and critical of it to just shut up? Telling people to vote by not buying it is a meaningless point when that's too quiet to be recognized for its intent. Are we not supposed to discuss the media we consume?
I did buy the game, the developer has my tacit "support" for this practice. At this point the best thing I can do to send a message about it is to be vocal in my opposition to it.
I used to play Tales games and the only factor I used to buy my first was a demo video playing at Kmart showing the anime opening to Symphonia. I barely knew what anime was at the time, but I bought the game not knowing what the content would be. I still remember a specific scene that happened in the game that had a lasting impact on me because of my grandmothers recent death. I never thought I would be confronted with that kind of scene, but I honestly never thought about video game content because I didn't really play RPGs aside from Pokemon when I was younger.
I think games need to be better about the content descriptors to avoid having people buy a product that they wouldn't have bought had they known it had content that they didn't agree with.
I listed some of the tropes found in anime because at this point in my life I have watched enough anime to know that some content is going to end up being a staple of specific genres and that kind of content still has the potential to leak into fantasy games that don't really have any business containing high school anime tropes.
If anyone were to ask me for buying advice on a Tales game and they asked me if it had any "Anime Tropes" that they had issues with I would say that it probably had them all without even playing the game. I have no reason to suspect that it would avoid any specific trope based on the past games I've played in the series.
The "vote with your wallet" idea is something that's been around for a long time and its true that it only works when enough people actively avoid a series due to whatever past issues. We have seen video game series fall and fail when enough people had issues with previous titles and refused to support the next one.
The question then obviously comes when a person likes a series overall, but doesn't want to deal with content that shouldn't be there to begin with. The only reasonable answer is again to "vote with your wallet", but if only a minority of people are willing to avoid monetary support then it can feel like it all amount to nothing.
The only reasonable option after that is to attempt a grassroot effort to bring the issues to light via various social media means or campaigns for change. If it was an American developer I would say that kind of effort has a high chance to reach the ears of those who are in a position to enact real change. I would say that we have seen success of that with American game devs.
The issue is that to my knowledge that kind of effort coming from American fans does not reach the ears of those who can enact change in Japan. It may be that those efforts are heard by an American branch, but the Japanese branch will still refuse. Biggest example of that would be Persona streaming and Atlus where the American side understands, but the Japanese side refused to move.
With all that being said I stand by my position that "voting with my wallet" is the best that my singular voice can do with the position I'm in. People are free to disagree with that and I bet that there are people with more social impact than me that can be vocal about the issue and have more impact, but I still believe that history has shown that Japanese devs will still ignore it. There is no harm in trying, but I don't see success from that avenue unless it's coming from within Japan.
That doesn't mean I want people to shut up or not express themselves. I was reading this thread and I thought I should give a viewpoint that looked at why the content exists and why it probably wont stop appearing in games made by Japanese developers and why it will probably continue to appear in JRPGs.
store.steampowered.com
