- Senior manangment are either totally oblivous to the effects their actions have or just don't care about the well being of their employees.
- Senior management will be very hands-off for most of a project until the last few months when...
- Senior management frequently meddles in the development process and makes decisions on things they aren't qualified for such as important design or technical issues. This results in last minute changes that waste work and often turn out to be poorly received by the customers and reviewers anyway.
- Overtime is basically mandatory. It is paid for but you don't get extra.
- Almost all games are associated with a third party movie release or a physical toy shipping date. Which means pretty much 0 room for moving deadlines.
- Crunch is not avoided, and can last for unacceptable lengths of time. 6months+ etc
- The reward for working hard and getting things done is even more work.
- Drowning in technical dept, management will never allocate resources to clearing it up until it's too late though. They'd rather make another game per year.
- Ancient, bespoke tech and tools that requires a long time to adjust to. This isn't a transferable skillset so won't help in advancing your career elsewhere.
- Losing lot's of staff because of all of the above, which amplifies the problems due to experienced and/or talented people leaving.
- Customers are not respected, company is totally fine shipping an inferior product if refining it would cost them money.