They were good before (and please correct me if I’ve got this wrong) EB bought them and did a “reverse takeover”. Since that point they’ve been going downhill.
I don’t always, but when I do it’s mostly to do with character customisation. If I’m playing a game where my character is constantly visible I’d rather it was something I wanted to look at, and male clothing is boring. OK, some games don’t restrict clothes but many do. So I tend to create a character which is a female version of me, except in the cases where I prefer a male character (which isn’t often if I have the choice!)