He really shouldn't change it. Westane who makes The Company (another HTML game) has Dakota as one of the main characters and he kept her because it's a remembrance of her life and work.
Changing her is a HUGE fucking insult because it kind of gives off the vibe that she was only good when she was alive. That's fucked up.
Exactly! I could understand the change if she was portraying a shitty character in the game and was constantly being bashed by the MC/other characters because that would be disrespectful to her memory, but she's an awesome character in the game and I think developers still using her assets is just a sign of how loved she was as an actress.
In my opinion, the author removing her from the game is a much bigger insult than actually using her in a respectable manner, which plawy was.
Not to mention that I highly doubt the girl plawy replaces her with will be half as good as Dakota either. So, this game is probably going to fall off for me, since Dakota was my favourite character in the game. Really is a shame.
#1 rule when writing something, be it a story or game, do not
ever give into negative feedback, because once you give in the first time, it's just a snowball going downhill.