It is time to start calling the emotions and experiences that currently cluster under the umbrella term “empathy” by their names. Out in the open, without the cover of empathy as a catchcall buzzword, sympathy, depth, and allyship become more visible and therefore more accessible for critique. Caring, compassion, sorrow, loss, and queer entanglement are powerful concepts that deserve to be spoken out loud, not lost in the rhetoric of empathy. . . . More valuable than a video game that allows players to identify with someone else is a game that requires players to respect the people with whom they cannot identify. (Ruberg 68)

Ruberg calls for greater specificity in describing the experiences associated with video gaming to oppose the overuse of empathy and its related rhetoric as a catchall. The author then proposes a reframing of the purpose of games within the genre dubbed "empathy games" to instead foster respect among players for those they cannot understand rather than trying to replicate identically marginalized experiences (68). In the game Gone Home, Sam's unique experiences are emphasized rather than focusing on generalized experiences. By doing so, emotions, such as sorrow and compassion, become more apparent. 


This locker is where the protagonist begins to unravel Sam's identity and conflict. This is a significant moment as the player experiences this from the perspective of an elder sibling and outsider, rather than the perspective of a queer person themself. The game lets the user deal with their own emotions with the topic rather than impose the "feeling" of the marginalized person on them.  These emotions are specific subcategories of empathy, such as sorrow for the souring relationship between Sam and her parents and caring for Sam's wellbeing as she's figuring out her identity.

Through the player understanding Sam's specific emotions, it moves away from generalizations of marginalized groups and develops deeper compassion for these groups.