For me, it’s the opposite. Until the game is completely playable from beginning to end, with the plot complete, the game doesn’t feel like a game to me. It feels like a prototype, a tech demo, and I have no interest whatsoever in working on prototypes. So the first few years (yes, years) working on a game are a slog that I have to force myself through. I fall into a state of depression because of the slow progress on my game, and my depression slows down the progress on my game. I’ll take any shortcuts I can at that stage, stopping just short of generative AI (which is the line that I refuse to cross). The only thing keeping me going is my total commitment to the game. Working on juice at that point feels like torture.
Then the game reaches the first fully playable version, and what was previously torture becomes a joy to me, because I now have a game, and I can make it better. Failure is no longer a possibility, it’s just a matter of fixing this one little thing before release, then this other little thing, and soon I’ve spent a whole year fixing little issues, and it was the most productive year since I started working on the game.