"What makes the rhetoric of empathy as it is applied to queer indie games (and other video games by, about, or for marginalized people) so problematic? First, as many of those who have condemned this rhetoric have pointed out, it minimizes the lives and identities of those who are seen as “different” or “other.” Although a video game may offer a glimpse into queer experience, for example, no game can replicate the fullness of lived queer experience or the real stakes of being a queer body in the world." (Ruberg 60)

Ruberg criticizes how "empathy" video games offer a glimpse into marginalized or underrepresented groups' difficulties but don't allow players to fully experience and understand other's lives. Using empathy can downplay the queer experience because it implies it can be broken into an easily consumable format (60). In Gone Home, the player is the observer instead of someone actually experiencing being a part of a marginalized community. Gone Home creates more sympathy than empathy for Sam, as the player cannot fully understand what Sam was feeling. In the game, the player acts as Sam's older sister, Katie, and hears Sam's stories instead of actually experiencing them. Because the player only hears about Sam's fight with her parents, the player is able to feel bad for Sam but is not able to understand what Sam was feeling. This is important because players don't assume they can understand the queer experience, instead they view it from an outside perspective. Players experience the sympathy through the variety of artifacts left behind in the house. For example, the letter below displays the argumentative nature between Sam and her parents. Players act only as a spectator and cannot understand the full story and connect to what Sam is feeling. 

Gone Home embraces the limitation that games cannot allow players to fully understand or affect the queer experience, and instead tells a compelling story from an outside perspective.