> For others, the inevitable outcome of what sources familiar with the company describe as years of a culture that promoted constant overwork, toxic management, and ~creative stagnation~
Having never worked in the game industry, I have a very naive view of what is the day-to-day of game developers. Being inherently creative work, what would creative stagnation look like in this case?
Sleep deprived/overworked people have less creative energy (all sorts of productivity studies prove this over and over again). Poorly managed people watching their flanks for toxic attacks at their ideas allow themselves less creative freedom.
The inability or unwillingness to come up with new ideas. You wind up recycling old ideas and avoid trying anything new. An old criticism of telltale games is that if you've played one of their games you've played them all.
Having never worked in the game industry, I have a very naive view of what is the day-to-day of game developers. Being inherently creative work, what would creative stagnation look like in this case?