I read an interesting article discussing the "
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", as a narrative mechanic, for a game.
A section of the article directly relates to the point you've made.
They propose that, in a game with multiple paths, the dev has to do X x the amount of work & it will mostly only be seen by the % of the player base who are following that specific path.
Which obviously creates a lot more work, for limited audience consumption.
If you have 10 unique paths & 10% of the playerbase is on each, that's 90% of the stuff the dev's written, not being seen by 90% of the players.
Even with hardcore fans, who are following each route on a separate save, they still generally amount to a relatively small % of the total player numbers.
It's much more efficient & cost-effective to have scenes shared by all paths.
Real choice & unique paths are exponentially complex.
Mass Effect 3 writer said this about it:
“Imagine that you have to write a scene where one potentially dead character talks to another potentially dead character about an event that might have happened, or might have not.”
