People don't like finding video game characters attractive. If I keep it in mind, it would be hypocritical. Do people get weird about it and sometimes take it too far? Of course, but the same goes for popstars, actors, cartoon characters, and real-life people that we find attractive. It just happens.
You could argue that weird attitudes towards characters are more frequent in video games, but that might just be because you're more interested in video games (I assume, unless you've stumbled upon ThePopstar here) and therefore look into it more. You could argue that this is a bigger deal in video games, where the culture war is constant and where the fictional, hyperdesigned nature of character models is seen as a win or lose for each side of this perfectly imagined divide. But it only matters how much you care. I, a raised video game journalist, humbly declare that Eve from Stellar Blade is hot. This is usually agreed upon but often disputed. I'm still not sure why.
The issue is when it's the primary reason for playing, which quickly becomes a toxic tarpit where you start convincing yourself (and convinced by your immediate like-minded entourage) that games are the only reason they should exist. This, I think, is why we fight in Stellar Blade. I can say that the game is a bit shallow, that Eve lacks personality, that the mix of gun and melee combat doesn't work for the many epic bosses it tries to serve, but that some will only get by as an excuse to hide that I hate beautiful women.
It's all a bit silly when framed as it is, but it becomes more serious when these kinds of attitudes pervade popular gaming discourse. These conversations, often by design, make the community a less welcoming place for those who don't think that the sole and primary purpose of video games is to cater to hot women. And, it is still becoming more serious in the case of Pragmata.
Diana's reaction to Pragmatism cannot be generalized
In the run-up to its release, Reddit banned the Pragmata subreddit due to its content. While gaming communities are notoriously toxic, this is a rare occurrence. r/Pragmata_ was shut down due to Reddit's Rule 4, which refers to sexually explicit content of minors. Pragmata's star is the childlike android Diana, who was the focus of this apparent material. This is not an isolated case, either – one of the moderators of the main Pragmata mod resigned because they were sick of all the “p*do sh*t”, while the community founded r/PragmataSFW, specifically to avoid the Diana content that has permeated the main subreddit even after the ban.
Reddit is far from the only place you'll see people sexualizing Diana. The Steam forums are full of open discussion of her allure, including lust for her legs and wishes for mods that would allow players to dress (or undress) Diana in more attractive ways. Capcom hasn't helped itself in this regard, recently offering a Twitch emote of Diana crying in a pose similar to the famous lollipop meme.
Diana is barefoot because she charges with her feet, and while this gives most players a childlike innocence, the meme makes it hard to see this design choice through a lens that gives the devs the benefit of the doubt as to what audience they're catering to.
What struck me most about it was the courage of it all. I am not naive enough to be shocked by this behavior, nor am I ignorant of the fact that there are some bad people in the bad corners of the internet. But that's all. They are no longer in corners. It seems that pragmatism implies a generalization of this approach to gaming where everything exists to be sexualized and anything that cannot be sexualized is working in the service of a nefarious agenda to fundamentally awaken society.
Pragmata goes beyond culture war
There was a similar cheap discussion about Stellar Blade, but at least there was a woman being objectified, not a child. That makes it better, even if it's not necessarily better. And games like Baldur's Gate 3, generally seen as the left side of the culture war, have a thirsty fandom that discusses characters in a woobified, hypersexed way that (especially in the case of Astarion's post-launch story development) can be a game's detriment.
But all of this, the whole culture where everyone is beautiful and no one is ugly, is a very intelligent discussion about how we view and respond to modern media. There's a battle between those who want to oversanitize the media, give sex scenes no narrative weight, tamper with the audience's sensibilities, and subvert the culture into nothing more than magazines wrapped in black plastic and sold on the top floor of newsstands (is that still a thing?) but that's kind of beside the point of whether the subject of this battleground is a real child, fictional or not.
I haven't played Pragmata yet, and that's because I've tapped out a bit on stories where men assume figures like daughters and prove their masculinity by protecting them. I think it's a slightly better power fantasy than just killing everyone with your awesome powers, but then The Last of Us makes room for both. If I play Pragmata – and Capcom's post-launch attitude towards the Diana fandom will be a major factor in this – it won't be because I find the child at the center of the game appealing. I hope gaming can return to a place where, if it's too much to expect these people to cease to exist, at least they don't get to brag about it without consequence.
- issued
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April 17, 2026
- ESRB
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Juvenile/language, violence, in-game purchases
