It's remarkable how someone will always find a way to lambast successful companies even if it means faulting them for becoming successful and relevant in the first place.
When you have a tiger by the tail (either literally or figuratively), it's not unreasonable to temporarily increase your level of effort beyond that which is long-term sustainable.
I've done it (in games, in 2 other startups, and in finance). I still do it now sometimes when waves of unrelated work all happen to peak near the same time.
Yeah except that epic already prints money via their engine licenses and has since the days of UE3(when MS paid for the development of Gears while the rest of us licensees fended for ourselves mostly).
There's literally no reason for this other than exploiting developers for more money.
Using your own logic, a company could justify slavery in order to deliver the best product.
Software can be made without forcing people to work insane hours. Other sectors of the programming field accomplish this, yet games companies are somehow incapable? No, they clearly use and abuse people who have a passion for making games.
But if it were, you would be okay in justifying a company using slavery as long as they're "successful". Got it.
So now all we have to do is make working "crunch hours" for months illegal, since you don't have the ability to determine what's ethical or not for "successful" companies unless the law literally tells you, apparently.
Sorry but I'm going to call out bad work practices that run counter to building a better product when I see it regardless of the success.
Crunch destroys lives(remember easpouse?) and has no place in that industry.