It goes all the way back to books and even way before that. There's not a section in the front of the book where I fill in that the MC is a fat pink haired "man" with piercings and a vagina. You get whatever characters were written for you and can form your own connections or opinions on them.

It's not that I'm going to go in a rage that they shouldn't be allowed to make these create-a-character game, but if we are talking single player story RPGs, I've gotten to the point where it dampens my interest in them. Mainly, because just my experience they don't offer me the same type of story, because in a lot of ways they can't because they left a lot up to the player.