>>723114619
You're the first person I see voicing something I've been thinking about for some time now. You look up interviews of classic, beloved games between the late 90s and early 2010s and there's *always* crunch stories about living in the studio for weeks sleeping in the couch barely seeing their wives back home. Yet somehow, at the end of the day, the games released were industry behemoths like Diablo, Halo, San Andreas, Mass Effect. Games that, once all has been said and done and people look back on them decades later after the dev crunch has been forgotten about, will stand the test of time and be forever idolized.
The idea with taking crunch away is fine. On paper. But the industry has demonstrably proven it doesn't work out. Either, as you said, games that could be done in 3-4 years are done in 6-8 so by the time you blink and there's just a duology you are 15 years older; or you don't rush your devs so they can do a month worth of dev time in three, you wait a decade for the new game and when it comes out it's Cyberpunk, or Starfield, or Veilguard. I don't know man, surely we've lost more than we've gained? Surely some times, asshole project managers that treat you like an 1800s negro are the ones that get shit done?

>>715472402
Marketing pushed Ashley far more heavily for the first game, Asari were barely shown in trailers and promos. I think they had to pivot after players picked Liara more.