It's definitely a problem, I've had it happen a few times. I'm mostly referring to Daz based games, because in HS its a given since there are like two or three male faces in that environ. 
Anyone else have an immediate negative first impression of a game when you see what model the dev chose for the MC, because it is identical or easily identifiable as the same as a character you disliked from another game?
Maybe its rude to name a game it happened to for me, but the character that caused it the first time was Zach the annoying "best friend" character from Intertwined. This other game's MC was almost identical in the face (but you'd have to look really close to see the difference) and had the same hair in the first few chapters. The dev kept making him the focus of scenes, you just couldn't escape it, but on top of that the Engrish was bad so I couldn't finish the first chapter. I put an apologetic post on the thread here saying something to the effect of "I know this is unfair to the game but if it happened to me it might to someone else; every time I saw the MC I see <vague explanation of who Zach is without naming him or the game specifically> and I just want to punch my monitor." This all came to mind now because just the other day it came out with a new release and there was talk on the thread or changelog that the MC's hair style was inexplicably changed at some point. I went to see how I actually phrased that post and it is no longer there.
An unfortunate thing about this effect is that which game came out first doesn't matter, it all depends in the order that the beholder played them in. Say in five years some hot new game is all the rage and is the entry point into the genre for many new fans. But one of the main henchman of this new game randomly uses the same model as the MC from BaDIK, or even worse the doppelganger MCs from LoF and Artemis, and is evil and cruel and kicks puppies or something. These new players will eventually start looking around to see what else is out here in the AVN world and when they pick up those popular older games they'll immediately wrinkle their nose when they see who is representing them in the story. Maybe if they aren't a self-inserter (that sounds... dirtier than it should) the effect won't be as strong?
So I guess the moral of the story is devs need to not use stock faces for their MCs, and Daz needs to make more male faces I guess? Or devs can avoid showing the MCs face, which some games do better than others. (Though to be fair, WVM was really good at it until it jumped the shark.)
Anyone else have an immediate negative first impression of a game when you see what model the dev chose for the MC, because it is identical or easily identifiable as the same as a character you disliked from another game? Maybe its rude to name a game it happened to for me, but the character that caused it the first time was Zach the annoying "best friend" character from Intertwined. This other game's MC was almost identical in the face (but you'd have to look really close to see the difference) and had the same hair in the first few chapters. The dev kept making him the focus of scenes, you just couldn't escape it, but on top of that the Engrish was bad so I couldn't finish the first chapter. I put an apologetic post on the thread here saying something to the effect of "I know this is unfair to the game but if it happened to me it might to someone else; every time I saw the MC I see <vague explanation of who Zach is without naming him or the game specifically> and I just want to punch my monitor." This all came to mind now because just the other day it came out with a new release and there was talk on the thread or changelog that the MC's hair style was inexplicably changed at some point. I went to see how I actually phrased that post and it is no longer there.
An unfortunate thing about this effect is that which game came out first doesn't matter, it all depends in the order that the beholder played them in. Say in five years some hot new game is all the rage and is the entry point into the genre for many new fans. But one of the main henchman of this new game randomly uses the same model as the MC from BaDIK, or even worse the doppelganger MCs from LoF and Artemis, and is evil and cruel and kicks puppies or something. These new players will eventually start looking around to see what else is out here in the AVN world and when they pick up those popular older games they'll immediately wrinkle their nose when they see who is representing them in the story. Maybe if they aren't a self-inserter (that sounds... dirtier than it should) the effect won't be as strong?
So I guess the moral of the story is devs need to not use stock faces for their MCs, and Daz needs to make more male faces I guess? Or devs can avoid showing the MCs face, which some games do better than others.
(Though to be fair, WVM was really good at it until it jumped the shark.)
