With indie teams of 50 or less people turning out bangers, and AAA studios of 500+ people turning out messy slop, I think one big answer to your question is quite obvious: the size of the team getting bigger has a negative effect on the quality of the game.
Big teams are harder to direct, and harder to keep pointed in a coherent direction. In other words, big ships turn slower than small ships. When you start making a game, usually the game you end up with is pretty different from the one you started on, and smaller teams can handle those changes much quicker than giant teams.
Overhiring is almost always a symptom of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing thinking that adding more people will somehow make something faster or better quality, when in reality adding too many people actually will have the opposite effect.
With indie teams of 50 or less people turning out bangers, and AAA studios of 500+ people turning out messy slop, I think one big answer to your question is quite obvious: the size of the team getting bigger has a negative effect on the quality of the game.
Big teams are harder to direct, and harder to keep pointed in a coherent direction. In other words, big ships turn slower than small ships. When you start making a game, usually the game you end up with is pretty different from the one you started on, and smaller teams can handle those changes much quicker than giant teams.
Overhiring is almost always a symptom of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing thinking that adding more people will somehow make something faster or better quality, when in reality adding too many people actually will have the opposite effect.