Imagining a different sexuality is probably the same.
There are completionists out there who want to get every bit of possible story or every affordable achievement possible out of a game.
If written well (and that in itself is a challenge), I can see a game encouraging people to do a second playthrough as a different gender or sexuality just to unlock more of character backstories or achievements or whatnot. If that means some of them better understand what life is like for people of different genders or sexualities or learn something about themselves, that can only be a good thing.
It’d be a monumental task to develop such a game though. You’d need a writing team that fully understands all of this and a large enough cast where there are enough options for everyone. You can’t just have one token character of each representation – there still needs to be meaningful choices and characters that are deep enough where you can get invested in their story.
Having romanceable characters be “playersexual” drastically reduces the required size of the cast and all of the development benefits that come along with that. But by doing so, you aren’t really representing diversity – you’re just making character identities mirror whatever the player wants them to be. This appeases LGBTQ+ players who want to be able to romance whomever they are attracted to but doesn’t help with visibility to or acceptance from cis/het people.
As a pansexual man, I like that games do this. But what I actually want to see from a game at some point is characters whose diversity includes their sexuality – not just characters that mirror my own. (For simplicity’s sake I’m lumping romantic and sexual attraction together here, though I know they are different.)
I want a male character to turn down my advances because he’s straight, or a female character to do the same because she’s just not in to guys. Or the hot pink-haired enby punk to turn down everyone because they’re ace/aro.
But I also want scenes where a same-sex character awkwardly confesses their feelings with the protagonist, and players who are straight end up in the situation of having to let them down. (Or, perhaps, decide that it’s okay if your character’s preferences don’t mirror your own.) And maybe those players discover the character they’ve been crushing on all game isn’t interested in them – but with mature options for handling that rejection.
In a world where people are always talking about the patriarchy and toxic masculinity, why aren’t we presenting the idea that its okay for a straight man to continue to be good friends with a woman who loves other women without the “maybe I can change her mind” mindset?
Yes, FF14 does have options to skip story or (most) character levels. They are, like others have stated, primarily targeted towards players who are levelling alts (which the game by nature doesn’t really need as much).
FF14’s story is amazing, but it’s long and not necessarily something you want to repeat.
And while this is effectively buying levels, FF14 is not designed as a pay-to-win game. The amount of experience required to reach maximum level is balanced for someone who is playing the game legitimately – unlike P2W games where requirements are artificially inflated to encourage you to spend money. You will get most or all of the experience you need to hit max level just from following the storyline and a moderate amount of side quests (on one class anyways.)
That said, many FF14 players say that fashion is the true endgame… and there are a lot of nice-looking items on the store. So I suppose it depends on what your definition of “winning” is. 🙃