I think it would behoove game devs and players alike to rethink how they approach narrative branching. Because as it is now, I cannot fault devs for looking at the statistic that only 70% of players finish games and changing their design philosophies to match. Even beyond the cynical corporate money side, it's kind of dumb to look at such a massive statistic and not account for that in your design approach. Look at Tyranny for an example. A single playthrough of the game is actually pretty short for a crpg. But it's designed to be played through multiple times, with different quests and events happening due to early story branching you select. I think making games that have shorter storylines that expand outward via branching is gonna play better than long, sprawling epics that have to account for even more major choices accumulated through longer narrative. That way each run individually is less of a commitmenet, and less daunting to dive into a new playthrough to see how any particular new choices alter the narrative.
I also think it's worth considering the scope of the narrative. The grander the scope of the story, the harder it becomes to account for what's going on. Look at Mass Effect. They had to account for the possibility of myriad choices across the entire galaxy on how the ending panned out and they couldn't. But then look at the Citadel DLC. People find that a far more satisfying as an end note on the series specifically because its an ending that lets you take stock of the stuff that really matters, your companions and friends, the lives you impacted through your journey and who impacted you. Now look at Fallout New Vegas. You get to decide the fate of a whole region, but its broken down into small chunks. You see how your actions impact various regions and factions, with some big choices whose fates you see touching things broadly. Again the smaller scope allows for more meaningful decisions, because the wider the scope of the story, the more tangled and messed up things become.
I've come to be wary of dramatic narrative changes, because more and more I find that those bigger changes mean sacrificing our agency in who our player character is. I value the character and being able to shape them far more than being able to shape the larger narrative in a truly story-altering way.
This answer kinda got rambly, I hope folks can still follow along.
