Also considering that gameplay systems are becoming more simple instead of more complex, at least on AAA games anyways, the armies of devs seems to be mostly the artists making the photorealistic graphics.
I have experience in game dev and I can absolutely tell you that the large majority of work done for most games is asset creation. Models, textures, sound, etc. The actual programming and writing usually take less than 50% combined of total development time.
Also considering that gameplay systems are becoming more simple instead of more complex, at least on AAA games anyways, the armies of devs seems to be mostly the artists making the photorealistic graphics.
I have experience in game dev and I can absolutely tell you that the large majority of work done for most games is asset creation. Models, textures, sound, etc. The actual programming and writing usually take less than 50% combined of total development time.