Late to the party and this doesn't address what the OP said directly, but the state of the video game industry actually makes me quite sad. The last AAA game I

Late to the party and this doesn't address what the OP said directly, but the state of the video game industry actually makes me quite sad. The last AAA game I played was Oblivion, which I couldn't finish. I haven't really played a AAA game since, and have only played two video games all the way through since (Braid, and Monument Valley). When the OP talks about working on a project so big that no one person really "grocks" the whole thing I can relate, but I also want to say "it shows". IMO, the current state of AAA games is shit. I think the reason they are this way have to do with what the OP is complaining about, the originating vision of the game comes from Marketing not an artist, and no one person has vision for the game. Maybe video games just have too many resources at there disposal. I think I read somewhere that either Ocarina of Time or Mario 64 had double or triple the playable content of the released game and Miyamoto had a perfectionist eye for the game and was merciless in what made the cut. Resource constraints are a good thing, IMO, as it forces people to make a razor focused product that trims the fat mercilessly. Having unlimited resources is the enemy of good decision making, and it shows in the current state of video games (and film too). Games and movies are just too long/full these days.