I tend to think of general content warnings and “descriptors” separate from specific trigger warnings.
General warnings are what you see before a movie or a TV program or a video game, like the MPAA or ESRB rating. People know an R rated movie might contain things inappropriate for kids under 18, but a PG movie is usually fine to let kids watch without supervision. The general content warnings used to be purposefully vague - HBO on TV in the 1980s before movies would warn things like.
This movie is rated R for scenes of Violence, Sex and Language.
This movie is rated PG for Language and Brief Nudity
Those were kind of the big three - sometimes referred to as the VSL warning. Cable also sometimes would say “brief nudity” for some less adult stuff. For example some cuts of the musical movie of Grease have brief shots of bare butt when people are “mooning” the cameras at the dance or from inside a car. Or if there’s a distant shot of people jumping into water naked skinny dipping in a non-sexual context.
So, long story short (too late) the broadcasting companies found it useful to define things in slightly more detail as “content descriptors” for cases like violent golden age cartoons where Daffy Duck’s head would be temporarily blown into ashes that crumble away by Elmer Fudd’s shotgun but then quickly grow back, warranting nothing more than side eye from the character.
While we don’t need to copy the MPAA or ESRB, it’s useful to see how they do it.
General content warnings and descriptors (how much sex or violence or language) I include in all my works - these are shown to everyone on the title screen and do not spoil any details:
- Comic Mischief (Absurd Cartoon Violence) - Mild Violence - Violence - Graphic Violence - Gore
- Mature Themes - Adult Themes - Disturbing Themes
- Discussion of Nudity - Described Scenes involving Nudity - Images of Nudity (if there are images in a game)
- Discussion of Sexuality - Implication of Sex - Descriptions of Sex - Explicit Sexual Descriptions
- Adult Language - Adult Humor - Verbal Abuse
The actual “Content Warnings” or “Trigger Warnings” are considered spoilers and are provided on request behind a link. These describe in more detail why the content warning is given. They can still be general and provide more detail if necessary.
Trigger Warning (spoiler)
TW: Animal Violence - Dogs violently attack a human and draw blood, but the animals are not harmed. Dogs are implied to have killed other people but this is not shown or explicitly described.
Again keep in mind that the majority of the people who play your game will go by the general warnings if provided and won’t read the TW sections. Only people who understand they have triggers will usually browse through your trigger warnings, and will appreciate detailed information if they are interested in your work. so for the most part, the argument that “spoilers are bad” is moot with regard to providing informational content and trigger warnings.