Well, I've done a few short stories that I posted on my blogs. I enjoy doing them! They're pretty low-effort, but they can really build up a character, without forcing me to spend a ton of time rendering stuff. I think people's affinity for Isabella is like 80% her short story. The issue has always been having that very important material existing outside the game. It kinda feels like reading a Batman comic, where a character's origin is only told in a radio play, or something. Not everyone is inclined to seek that material out and I hate the idea of that stuff being lost one day, and the game feeling incomplete for its absence.
That's put me off doing them as much as I'd like to. Plus, they had certain weird quirks, like needing to be set before the events of the game, never mentioning Guy by name, etc. because they needed to work with every player's journey. It'd kinda suck to write an Ashe story taking place solely in her corruption route, when someone is entirely a love path player. Y'know?
Moving them into the game solves all those problems. Now they'll be part of the game and I can have variable-dependent things occur in the story. It's a big incentive to actually make more short stories.