These kinds of threads always quickly devolve into a complete mess, but I'll chime in from the perspective of a game developer.
The development team of Carpathian Night is 100% male. We have zero funding, publisher, or backing of any kind, so the only way I was able to get any kind of help on this project was by asking people who grew up playing Castlevania games throughout their childhood. These are the only kinds of people passionate enough to work on such a demanding project without compensation. With few exceptions, this group of fans is overwhelmingly male, and it absolutely has to do with the way the games were marketed in the early days of the series. The hero for almost every classic-vania is a hyper masculine Conan lookalike that serves as a proper vehicle for male power fantasies. The same could be said about much of the game industry in the 80s and 90s, and the effect of that is still visible in the year 2018.
I don't want to make the same mistake and perpetuate this problem further with Carpathian Night. The grizzly looking hero of CN is Dorin, who fits the part of the hyper masculine warrior we identified with as kids. Right along with him, I introduced Irina, the female heroine that is likewise defined by her ability as a warrior without the hyper masculine component to it. She is also properly equipped for battle, wearing armor that looks fit for battle instead of fit for sexy cosplay.
Before releasing the demo, I had a friend test play it, along with his 8 year old daughter. When it was the girl's turn to play, she had no interest in playing as Dorin and immediately picked Irina. Without the inclusion of Irina, there would be no relatable character for the girl to play as. The experience simply wouldn't have been the same. Video games can be really immersive experiences, and different people relate to different personas. Having a relatable persona onscreen can make the fiction of the game more personal, convincing, and real.
So as a game designer, who's job it is to create immersive fictional worlds, it only makes sense to consider what different people find relatable and do my best to include that in my game, regardless of my political views on feminism. Luckily, I feel like the industry is trending in that direction, more so than ever before, despite all the backlash over the past few years.