I think you really hit the nail on the head. How large of a role self-expression plays in the "fun" determines how important it is. VRChat, Minecraft, and GTA O

I think you really hit the nail on the head. How large of a role self-expression plays in the "fun" determines how important it is. VRChat, Minecraft, and GTA Online have been successful because the entire point is to let people be creative with very few guardrails. The old days of Counter-strike were filled with people using shock photos as sprays. Yet when Valve nixed the ability to use custom sprays it didn't impact the popularity of the game at all because that isn't the point of the game.