About 10 years ago my company was supplying a critical component to a major game developer. We showed up at the office the last month of development to help with debugging.<p>It was a scene out of some psycho's nightmare. 18-21 hour days; 30 people at desks in a room, in virtual lockdown. They looked like the walking dead. The producer was this 5'4" guy wearing storm trooper boots, he'd walk around like Hitler laughing at how fucked up everyone looked, and saying things like "The beatings will continue until morale improves!" No one was laughing.<p>What was stupid about it is everyone was so burnt they couldn't think straight, kept making simple mistakes. Productivity was probably around 10-15% of peak, if that. It was one of the more depressing things I had ever seen.<p>All entertainment sectors do this -- they sucker ppl in with glamor and rip them off. It's built into the business model.