To be fair I don't think the business side of it came into it anywhere. Somebody came up with an idea to make a character called Cidney. Whoever did either gave a brief to the character designer or let them do what they liked. One of those decided how to dress her, and when her design was presented to the rest of the team nobody objected (or, if they did, they were shot down). Most likely they aren't attempting to 'get more sales using sexy ladies,' someone creative just made an instinctive decision without really thinking about it, and here we are.
It's a super easy thing to do. On the last game I worked on, the player could choose from a list of audio names that they would be referred to by the game. When I joined the project there weren't any female names. There was no malice in there, just ignorance - it was a team of 95% dudes making a game they just assumed would only be played by other dudes. And I'm sure if we looked at the sales demographics that would end up being the case. Still, we got the female names included in the end. It didn't harm the game in any way. If even one woman played it and got to use her name, I think it was a worthwhile effort.
But if nobody along the pipeline gives it the thought... that's how this happens so often.