I am bringing this up because of this question:
What constraint (if any) limits crowd animation variety?
What's being asked in this case is: why did these companies make this decision?
I feel like this is a rehash of the situation dealt with in Is “How was entire game X made?” off-topic?
- The exact answers are unknowable, unless someone from one of these companies is here. Different companies might have done the same thing for completely different reasons.
- Any answers we do get will be speculation.
- It doesn't help anyone to know this. If Game A was limited by memory and Game B limited by budget, that has nothing to do with you, the developer of Game C, facing your own unique challenges. This is not a practical, answerable question based on an actual problem that you face.
As Jeff commented on the other discussion's question, it's trivia.
A more helpful form of this question would be to, upon encountering a situation where you have an actual problem here, ask about it.