>>33393840
I am an indie dev and will probably never touch big AAA studios unless I am getting a superstar position where I can tell executives to go eat a dick.
We are in a really stressful time for AAA videgames. Studios are throwing the weight of desired exponential growth on the back of devs.
>Half a decade long dev cycles
>mandatory crunch
>Insane deadlines to meet investor quota
>layoffs
It is not pretty.
If I were you, I would take the AAA offer, but would not crunch, overtime, or flinch at executives being dumb.
It is your dream, if you get the offer, give it a shot... BUT, BE SMART ABOUT IT.
>take the job
>work earnestly while you are there
>Do not comply with abusive demands or attempts to trick you
>Go to HR for EVERYTHING
>work your 8 hours and not a minute more
>turn your phone off once off the clock
>Take your weekends properly
If you do this and get laid off after a few months you can know for sure that you did what you should have done and the studio was just abusive and wanted to wring you dry.

Most devs get to their dream studio and kill themselves over the game, they then blame themselves over failures of upper management. This is stupid, do not do that.

Also, watch this REALLY good video by noodle
https://youtu.be/aS3-iSEwNhs
This also highlights a particularly nasty type of abuse which is "You are not going to overwork, then we will give your extra work to your friends"