Characters in an interactive medium are more than that. Sure, they can be: on a creative level, a developer might say 'this character represents the traits of that faction', or on a mechanical level, a fighting game player could say 'I chose them because they are the all-rounder'. However, they can also inspire, horrify, represent, excite and so much more. If I play an RPG I don't choose the character I play based on what the designer wanted. I choose them based on what I want to represent the character I want to play, through a mix of visual design, costume, background etc. It then sucks if the female costume options look overly-sexualised compared to the male ones. That is the kind of character design issue that this thread is discussing.
I also look at the passion that costumes inspire in the cosplay community, and don't think they are inspired by a tool. Look at the passion for characters over thirty years old like Link or Megaman, initially they might have been just a tool for the player avatar, but the characters have long transcended that, to the point where any costume change gets debated by the players. Players identify with characters far more than they do with the creator, by design- one is in their living room, being controlled by them. Discussion of character design matters because the characters (if they are any good) matter to the player as well as inform them about the game world. They aren't just the creator's tool to tell a story, and I doubt any creative, be they in games, film, writing etc, is surprised to find that players/viewers/readers etc see far more aspects or sides to a character, positive or negative, than they might have originally imagined. That's one reason you end up with people asking for sequels to story-based games, because they don't want their time with the character to end, not because they don't want the tool to be put down.
If you want to discuss a particular creator, then great, go for it, but this thread is about character design trends across a huge swathe of games. It's not any individual creative that is the problem (although, alright, that's a valid point of discussion), it's what's seen as the norm for female character design for a huge chunk of the industry, including games worked on by hundreds of people. Describing objectified characters or sexualised designs as 'just tools' seems incredibly dismissive of valid concerns to me.
