[kmeisthax]

This is from 2004, and we know so much more about the games industry that stories of overworked QA testers and programmers seem utterly quaint. Every company in the business[0] is run by a yet-to-be-convicted sex offender or enabler of such. Activision is currently involved in one of the biggest equal-opportunity lawsuits in history, which is only eclipsed by the legal fight between US EEOC and California DFEH[1] over who gets to prosecute them and how far they should go in doing so.

At the time I assumed that this behavior was enabled by a high churn rate - i.e. companies hiring junior developers unaware of the awful practices of the games industry and wearing them down until they left. However, this turned out to be naive. That's the Amazon approach - and Amazon is actually going to start running out of people to churn through soon. The games industry hasn't.

What I can only assume now is that the games industry does not churn through developers as much as they mould them into paragons of toxicity. Anyone who does churn out is just a normal human being, and those who stay are either already toxic or get moulded by the system into being as such.

[0] Nintendo is an interesting case. Management has actually been pretty opposed to crunch time and confident in delaying games until they're ready. However, there has been reports of overworked contractors from time to time. No reports of sexual harassment, yet.

[1] At one point California tried to file an intervening motion on the US EEOC's settlement agreement, and the US EEOC responded by alleging conflicts-of-interest that would have dynamited both parties' cases.