[superfunc]

Not really. Domain often dictates. If AAA games could get away with using a garbage collected language, I'm sure they would.

[pjmlp]

Unreal has GC support for C++.

Unfortunately Unity broken GC is a side effect of them not wanting to improve the stone age runtime they are using.

I guess many AAA could actually be done in languages with GC support, but game devs tend to only change tools when the OS/console vendors force them.

All that is needed is having such a vendor pushing a language with the same effort as they are pushing for JavaScript JITs, lets say.

[dang]

Programmer love would determine who'd make that change vs. who defended C++ to the death.

Domain is often dictated too—we're attracted to problems that fit our tools.