You can tell how provileged and cushy lives some of these people have, where they think a place that has catered food, gym access, air conditioning, chairs, desks, lots of leeway for free time like coming and going as you please (before crunch), etc., is "one of the most exploitive", especially with the salary averages in comparison to other industries.
I been to AAA studios before crunch and during crunch. There are lots of 'down time' due to the nature of the relaxed environment. Lots of time wasted, that could aleviate the crunch schedule if some actually
worked the full 8 hour day, and not laxed off a lot unless a new build needs to be published for testing on daily deadlines. I seen plenty where programmers are away from there desk to go to the on site gym for 3 hours, 3 hour lunches, etc., etc. (in an 8-10 hour work day). This is more common than you think, and if you know you have deadlines, then budgeting your work accordingly as a whole, would definitely help alleviate a strenuous crunch.
It seems to be psychologically driven, where some of the work output is lower than it could be (lower than a lot of other desk & chair careers) on a daily basis, because they know they have crunch coming up to bust their ass and get things done. There is also waiting on other departments as well, since there are a lot of moving pieces. Not saying the lax times are the sole reason, but it happens more often than not, and that will have an effect on how much you a 'crunching' down the road.
But to call it the "one of the most exploitive", have these people ever seen actual manual labor, often 1,000% more riskier to your health and well being, and 1/10th the pay grade?
AAA development may not always be fair, but one of the most exploitive is an utter shit drawn conclusive. And then the 'unionize' comments, lol. Good luck with that. That would mean, less jobs, and more outsourced work overseas. The output of the industry is not even close still to Hollywood levels, to call for a similar union structure. And even that type of union is hilarious to witness (the pampering and "not in the cool kids club just yet" for newbie actors) from film sets I have been on.