When things aren’t balanced. It either tells me the devs do not play their game or they have a dominant strategy and don’t bother playing anything else.
I’ve heard stories from professionals and you would be surprised how many devs don’t actually play the game they are developing.
Banished is a low bar. It had a lot of issues. I would argue the recently released Farthest Frontier is a better comparison. It also has some flaws but is leaps and bounds better than Banished.
I am male. If given the option to play female and a female would make the story more interesting I will choose to play a female. What defines “interesting” is arbitrary. Valheim - female named Muscle Wife. Phasmophobia - black male with friends (due to movie tropes) and female solo (because they look janky and ragged as hell). MMOs - depends on the aesthetic. If I am going to be staring at a character for a long time and I am not roleplaying an ugly bastard then I will choose female most of the time since I don’t play MMOs to self insert.
When choice isn’t an option I do not avoid a game just because of a character’s race or gender, but I am starting to get real sick of white male protagonists. They aren’t really offering me any new perspectives.