[Cthulhu_]

I considered that option too - consultants or freelancers or the like with less rigid contracts - however, the cost for those would be exponentially that of the young easy to hire developers; hourly rates at least twice as high, which doubles if you make them work double hours during crunch hours.

In-house developers work for a flat annual salary, and IIRC most game development companies don't pay overtime whilst demanding devs work overtime during crunch time.

But game dev extortion is a known problem, and the other problem is that people take it. Working in the video game industry is a dream for a lot of people, and they're willing to take a lot of shit for the perceived privilege to work on the things they love.

And the weirdest part? The actual development of a video game is often only a small part of the total cost package; iirc, games like the Call of Duty series cost more in marketing than the actual development.