I was at a tech conference job fair and chatting with a bunch of former game programmers.
I absolutely messed up when I asked one guy who worked on a famous game why they decided to do X feature, and if that was the reason for the game’s failure.
He looked me in the eyes and said something like, “I get orders from the business execs. So even if their ideas are obviously bad, if I don’t do it, I get replaced. After the game is released, good or bad, I get replaced. If the game doesn’t even get enough funding, I get replaced.”