Yeah I get that...but that doesn't really happen here. All the genderswaps across all these games adjust extremely quickly and are basically instantly good to go with their new equipment. The fetishization of the struggle to adjust and being taken advantage of barely exists, if at all.
A new character that's not a companion would take way less dev time. Briennes family is less work than Brienne.
And a new character can garner their own fanbase without the baggage of being excised from an existing one.
Plus, think about it from the dev perspective. Every time, say, B wants to create content for Berwyn in the future, he's immediately faced with the idea of having to create that content for male, female, and futa Berwyn. How do you think that affects how often he decides to do that?
Separate characters don't have the baggage or expectations of having equal or matching content.
Do we need to run the numbers again?
-Oh dear your first comment reminds me of all the fights on 4chan d/ boards with tg threads about how the kink should be done. If we go by doujin majority it should be immediate mind break through the magic of penis that turns any man turned woman into a cock hungry slut within the space of either a day or a few hours of sex.
-I get where you are coming from about the ease of new characters and I am conflicted on this because I think there are pros and cons to both when it comes to picking new characters over transformed characters.
Pros:
1. New characters are more flexible and don't have an established lore can even have a new race that appeals to certain crowds.
2. More characters helps to flesh out the cities and towns to make them actually feel alive.
3. Makes the devs lives easier and more likely to balance the content better (in theory
)
4. Can make them kink centric or even gender locked if there are plenty of new characters. I know a few in this thread crave more M/M content.
Cons:
1. Elimination of kinks. This could destroy the fundamental appeal of the game to some.
2. Bloated game full of characters without depth or development.
3.Could increase costs and time for the art development side, as slight alterations to character avatar is cheaper and less time consuming than having a new one created.
4. Lose the opportunity to have a well fleshed out character or party member made into something more appealing to the player. With Brienne some may think Brint is a great character with interesting lore that has been with me near the start. However I don't really want to travel around with a giant buff dude and would rather have female companions only. Or think the concept of having someone as your best bro would make best waifu if they were female. Sometimes it takes a man to be best girl.
5. Lose the chance to give a hated character/asshole a taste of their own medicine. (I am looking at you Kelt).
Thats how I see it. Also Daken could be right an unpopular male character may be seen in a new light and taken more interest in if they were a popular waifu. So Brint could have ended up with more content due to Brienne's popularity I don't think that is a stretch to say. Hell if Berwyn and Quin can get more M/M content made at the cost of a route that makes them female you won't hear me complaining.
Also Skandranon do you know how many characters who specific F/F scenes like Tribadism? Also am I wrong to say there are no female characters that are F/F only?