I'm fine with that, AAA games should be leading the way on solving the rendering equation in novel ways. Luckily they get so excited when they find something that it's published in detail and they do dozens of SIGGRPH presentations on it and after a while everyone else gets it for basically free.
Spend 8 years and millions of dollars building out engines and tools for mediocre games so good games can selectively use those tools in fun ways on tight budgets.
I have heard some of it is due to trying to prevent crunch, but I'm sure that is minimal, but yeah, most of it is from absurdly complicated graphics.
I'm fine with that, AAA games should be leading the way on solving the rendering equation in novel ways. Luckily they get so excited when they find something that it's published in detail and they do dozens of SIGGRPH presentations on it and after a while everyone else gets it for basically free.
Spend 8 years and millions of dollars building out engines and tools for mediocre games so good games can selectively use those tools in fun ways on tight budgets.