The game industry is quite dysfunctional. It had been proved that crunch is counter-productive. But there is macho thing to it and it's reassuring to managers.

The game industry is quite dysfunctional. It had been proved that crunch is counter-productive. But there is macho thing to it and it's reassuring to managers. And as jay_kyburtz's comment shows, there is also a lot of (misplaced IMHO) pride participating in a AAA project. It is the kind of discourse managers tell their team to make them work harder, but in a team of 200+, everybody is just a (replaceable) cog in the machine. Nevertheless, Gamedevs love what they do because a game is full of interesting problems. As a friend told me : the best game is to build the game. On the other end of the spectrum, working for a crud project in an enterprisey environment can be soul crushing. I've done a few years in the industry and it is a good place to work on hard problems and becoming a very good coder. But except if you go to the indie (or middleware) route, it is not sustainable : it has the same alluring seduction as Hollywood and it is even harsher (due to its ties to the finance industry).