This is why I don't get why the game industry has such a bad rep for overworking people. It's genuinely hard to do this kind of code so you'd think they take care not to scare away the few people who can do it. I recall at one point Goldmans was bragging to my team about how they'd hired a game dev to do their click-to-trade currency UI. Seemed like the guy found an easier job for more pay.
Game industry is like Hollywood. There's an endless supply of highly talented hopefuls from all around the world who want to get into the industry more than anything else. The focus of exploitation is just different -- the Harvey Weinsteins of the game industry don't try to sleep with brilliant Romanian programmers, instead they work them to death.
They've honed using your "passion" to extract as much work as they can from you for ~2-3 years. After which there's a 50/50 shot that the studio folds/etc.
In the AAA space there's also a vicious 90/10 rule where 10% of the games make 90% of the money. With rising costs it becomes increasingly difficult to keep hitting that 10% you need to keep your studio running.