Sure, when it comes to Twine, individual writers/teams may not be able to compete for now, but trends change, and more and more people are going to look for alternatives. Still, it’s hard to make a factual argument without knowing the actual situation behind CoG’s revenue stream, so this is only speculation on my part.
In my opinion, if an optional save system is implemented, it’s possible it won’t end up alienating most hardcore players as they will have the choice to not use it, i.e. toggle ironman mode. It would function as a difficulty level to appeal to different types of players. However, if CoG believes that it’s important to maintain hardcore gameplay as part of their brand (as From Software does), that’s a decision they can freely make as a business and I can respect that.
I would like to add that even Souls games have a checkpoint system using the bonfires, so if you’ve been struggling with a boss, it takes 5-10 minutes to go back and redo the fight. Maybe the more appropriate analogy is a roguelike, where you have to restart with each death.
I think part of this is because we don’t immediately learn about all of the consequences of each choice (as a result of delayed branching), and sometimes they come back in unexpected ways. In my experience, having saves doesn’t detract from the thrill of making hard, high-stakes choices, but of course it varies from player to player.
In any case, I’m thankful that we have community contributions like @cup_half_empty 's tool, as well as the save editor for Steam. So authors and readers do have options, even if they’re not officially supported as of right now.
Also wanted to share this for the discussion in case anyone missed it. Updating the save system does seem to be on CoG’s agenda: