Bottom line: what I find annoying is that the dev insinuates that ONE specific style of ethics is absolute, that there are no others.
I'd say it's you who insinuates something that isn't there. Very confidently so, I must say.
For me just to communicate openly doesn't equate to being responsible. Even being consensual isn't enough to be responsible in all situations.
Nothing in LeStag's post implied that those things are enough/the only things needed to be considered responsible. But! You are not responsible if you're not communicating openly in a relationship. You are not acting responsibly if you're not doing things with consent. You are not responsible if you're not treating other people's kinks with respect. You're not an adult either. And a lot of games don't have that, therefore, characters in those games are not acting like responsible adults.
His sentence goes on - and in that he describes his game - implying that the other games don't do that and aren't that.
Yep. And it is true.
That was the context in which the whole discussion started. There are a ton of other NTS games where couples, partners, spouses of several years can't simply talk about their wishes to the person they, supposedly, trust the most, and instead go through some convoluted schemes, involving, among other things, manipulating the gf/wife, "subtly" pushing them into the arms of their male (optionally buff/black) friend to see how they will react, installing fucking cameras in their house, tapping into their phone. It's a trope at this point where MC sees his gf being touched by a gym trainer or someone like that and thinks "OMG! Is he touching her ass? I should stop that but... why why does it make so horny?" And the gf (who, we assume, is older than 6-10 years old and thus should be aware of proper boundaries, thinks "OMG? Is he groping my ass? I should stop him but... maybe I'm just overreacting?"
And yes, a relationship that has open communication, respect, and non-judgement is "better" and healthier than the one that doesn't have it. People who do that are doing it right, people who don't — are doing it wrong.
I am building a good game with good characters who do everything right - and the others are not. This is his explicit claim.
You might want to check the definition of explicit. Even though LeStag confirmed that was what he meant, he didn't state it outright in the original post. So it was in implicit claim — Implied or understood though not directly expressed.